Liability of U-Bewt Shoes Factory for Employee Safety in Car Park

1
Student name:
Date:
Institution:

2
Issue: In view of the facts of this question, the issue that needs to be decided is related with any
rights that may be available to Ann against the salami manufacturer. Ann became seriously ill
after consuming the bacteria infected salami. In order to deal with this issue, the provisions of Ss
54 and 138 of the Australian Consumer Law need to be considered.
Rule: the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) has introduced certain statutory guarantees for the
consumers. These have taken the place of implied conditions and warranties that are available to
consumers under the Trade Practices Act 1974. In this way, the ACL has provided a set of rights
to the consumers regarding goods and services purchased by them. In certain cases, the statutory
guarantees are also available in case of purchases made by businesses. As mentioned above, the
statutory guarantees are available in case of the goods and services that have been purchased by
the consumers in Australia. Similarly, the consumer guarantees are also applicable in case of the
goods and services that have been imported in Australia.
In order to deal with the present issue, it is important to see who can be considered as a consumer
under the ACL. The reason is that the statutory guarantees that have been provided to consumers
by the ACL are applicable in case of all the consumers. For this purpose, it has been provided by
the ACL that a person or business may be considered as the consumer if it has purchase goods or
services up to the value of $40,000 or if the value of goods or services is more than $40,000, but
generally such goods or services are purchased for domestic purposes. On the other hand, if the
goods were purchased by any person in order to resupply the goods or to use the goods for
transforming them into some other product, such person does not fall within the purview of
consumer under the ACL.

3
Among the statutory guarantees that are available to the consumers, there is the statutory
guarantee provided by section 54. They scared these applicable in case of the businesses that sell,
lease or higher goods or services. This guarantees also in case of the manufacturers or the
importers in case there is no presence of the manufacturers in Australia. Accept the guarantee
related with title of the goods, generally these guarantees are not applicable in case of the goods
sold through auction.
As mentioned above, the ACL provides that the consumer guarantees are available to the
consumers regarding the purchase of goods. Among these guarantees is the guarantee provided
by section 54 related with acceptable quality of goods. The statutory guarantee dealing with
acceptable quality of goods provides that when any goods have been sold in trade or commerce,
it is necessary that the goods should be of acceptable quality. The test that can be used to see if
the goods can be considered as of acceptable quality leads to be seen if the goods are :-
Fit for the purpose
The goods are free from any defects
The goods are safe and durable
The goods are satisfactory in appearance and finish.
It also needs to be considered if the goods will be considered as of acceptable quality by any
reasonable consumer research consumer is completely aware of the condition of the goods.
Earlier certain matters need to be considered for this purpose (Stapleton, 2003). These matters
include the nature of the goods, the statements made on the packaging, the representations made
regarding the goods, the price of the goods and other circumstances that are relevant in this
regard.

4
Section 138 of the ACL also needs to be considered in the present question. According to this
section, the liability of the manufacture of goods arises if as a result of any defect present in the
goods, a consumer is killed or injured. Under the law, the manufacturer will be held liable for the
actual loss that has been suffered by the consumer due to injuries caused as a result of using the
defective product. In order to take action against the manufacture for supplying defective goods,
it is important to see who can be considered as the manufacture of particular goods. The goods
purchased by the consumers are available in different types of packaging and labels. This
indicates that there are several businesses concerned with the production of goods. As a result,
generally, several businesses are related with the packaging, importation, branding and
distribution. Consequently, it needs to be seen if all these parties can be treated as the
manufacturers if they have dealt with the product which has a safety defect. In this regard, it has
been mentioned in section 7 of the ACL that for the purpose of deciding the manufacturer of the
goods the following persons can be treated as the manufacturers:
The actual manufacture
The person holding himself to be the manufacturer
The person who allows another party to the present that such person is the manufacture
The person allowing the use of their business name, mark or brand
The person who has imported goods Australia in case the manufacturer does not have business in
Australia
Application: in the present case, the manufacturer of the bacteria infected salami was Smallgoods
Pty. Ltd. The salami has been backed by manufacture in plastic packaging, which was airtight.
However, the consumers can see the salami in its packaging. But the bacteria was so small that it
cannot be seen by human eyes. Due to this reason, the consumers cannot see that the salami had