Business Law Report: Consumer Rights, Sale of Goods, and Remedies

This report, prepared for a Business Law (UGB 110) assignment, delves into key aspects of consumer protection and the sale of goods within the framework of UK law. It examines the significance of implied terms under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, highlighting consumer rights related to satisfactory quality, fitness for purpose, and goods matching their description. The report analyzes the application of these provisions in a case study involving a defective TV, emphasizing the rights of consumers to seek remedies like replacement or rejection. Furthermore, the report addresses the Sale of Goods Act 1979, focusing on the transfer of property and possession, and outlines the remedies available to both buyers and sellers in the event of contract breaches, including damages and specific performance. Finally, it touches on product liability provisions for faulty goods. This report provides a comprehensive overview of the legal principles governing consumer transactions and the rights and obligations of parties involved.

Running Head: BUSINESS AND CORPORATION LAW 0
Business Law Assignment –UGB 110
7/27/2019
Student’s Name

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Introduction
In the world full of commerce, people do enter into contracts of purchase and sale of goods on a
daily basis. In such a situation, it becomes necessary from the perspective of the law to protect
the interest of innocent parties under such transactions/contracts. Many of the laws are there to
provide such protection namely the “Consumer Protection Act 1987”, “Consumer Rights Act
2015”, “Sale of Contract Act 1979” and so on. In this report, the provided case study will be
resolved by considering provisions of these acts. Further, the rights and liabilities of parties
under different acts will also be checked and infirmed.
Discussion
Question 1
In a contract of sale of goods, majorly two types of terms are there, one is express terms, and
another one is implied terms. The earlier terms i.e. express terms are the ones that are clearly
mentioned under a contract or decided between the parties in a clear manner. On the other side,
implied terms are those, which are not decided between the parties but exist in a contract because
of the nature of transaction or culture of industries. Here this is necessary to state implied terms
are equally important as an express term and breach of both of such terms bring the same
consequences for the parties.
In the context of the sale of goods, implied terms become more significant to study as sellers also
forget to consider the same. Consumer Right Act of 2015 plays an important role here. This is
important legislation of the United Kingdom. As the name implies, this act highlights some of
the major rights of consumers with respect to their purchase of goods or avail of services

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transactions. This act consolidates the remedies, which are available with consumers when they
receive defective goods or services. These rights are mentioned in section 9 to section 18 of the
act. These are the statutory rights and can be treated as implied terms. Starting from the very first
right, this is to state that the quality of goods is required to be satisfactory. Quality has a huge
significance in the matter of sale of goods and therefore the respective act identified this implied
guarantee. This requirement is mentioned in section 9. Subsection 2 of this section states that
goods seem to be of satisfactory quality when in the opinion of a reasonable person they are a
satisfactory considering description of the same, price and consideration of the same (if relevant)
and any other relevant situation (Crossan, 2017). Here other relevant situation includes anything
mentioned on the label. Further in order to determine that whether the quality of goods are
satisfactory or not, it is required to be check that whether they are safe, durable, finished and
appearance and fit for the purpose that such goods are used to or not. However, some exception
of this rule is there which are mentioned in subsection 4 of this section. As per the exceptions,
goods cannot be treated as of unsatisfactory quality if before purchasing the same, customer
examined the same or seller drawn the unsatisfactory condition in the knowledge of the buyer.
Section 10 of the act says that goods need to be fit for the mentioned purpose (Watt, 2015).
Sometimes, the buyer shows his/her personal purpose of purchase to the seller. In such a
situation, it becomes an implied term of the contract that goods will match the criteria and are
able to fulfill the purpose mentioned by the buyer. Section 11 is the next important section,
according to which it is an implied guarantee out of a sale contract that the goods sold by
description will match the description. It can be understood by an example. For instance, many
times, while selling a product, the seller gives some description of durability, product life,
specification and so on. In such a manner seller is responsible to sell only good matching to

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description only. Many of the times it happen that seller shoes some samples of goods while
selling the same to buyers and later on buyer get something different from the sample shown. To
prevent such situations, Consumer Right Act of 2015 makes it an implied term to provide the
goods as per the sample displayed. Further section 13 and 14 provide the provisions related to
implied liability to provide goods as per sample or model (Rose, 2016). Section 15 to 18 of the
act also prescribes certain rights of consumers, for instance, the right to get the correct
installation of goods, to get qualitative digital content and so on.
Section 19 states that if the seller finds to be in breach of one or more implied terms mentioned
under section 9,10, 11, 13 and 14 then the consumer has short term right to reject the goods as
well as the right of replacement and repair of the same. Apart from this right, the consumer also
has the right to reduce the price of goods or to make a final rejection of the same (Finch and
Fafinski, 2018). Section 31 is another important section of the act, which provides the provisions
related to the exclusion clause. As per this section, any term of the contract that restricts statutory
rights of the consumer (implied guarantees) under section 9, will be held invalid. In other words,
this is to state that by inserting any exclusion clause, a seller cannot avoid his/her liability
regarding breach of section 9 to 18.
In the case provided hereby, Mr. John brought a TV from a departmental store. While selling the
TV set, store manager Sarah provided some description regarding the quality of the TV. She
stated that the TV was of very nice quality, durable and good value for money. This description
was also mentioned on the TV as well. As per the contract developed between John and Sarah,
the departmental store was required to install the TV at John’s House in the next three days. As
per the issue of the case started when after three weeks of use, there were puffs of smoke and
flash coming out from the TV set. Applying the provisions of section 9 of the Consumer Rights

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Act 2015, it was an implied term of the contract to provide goods with durability as the same
mentioned on the TV itself. Departmental store breached this term. As per section 19 of the act,
Mr. John has the right to ask for the replacement of TV. Further, he can also reject the same if
find appropriate. Here this is to state that departmental store cannot rely on the exclusion clause
as section 31 of the makes such clauses invalid that prevent implied terms or statutory right form
being executive.
Question 2
“Sale of Goods Act 1979” is one of the lead sales of goods legislation of the UK. The same
consist of provisions related to the transfer of property between group of seller and buyer.
Section 16 to 20 of the act prescribe different situation when the property gets a transfer from the
seller to the buyer. As per section 16 of the legislation, goods will not be transferred if the same
is unascertained. It means for the transfer of the goods, the same needs to be ascertained. Section
17 of the act make focus on the intention of the parties and says that even after goods become
ascertained, they cannot be transferred if parties do not show the intention (Faber and Lurger,
2009). Section 18 of the act is an important section, which prescribes five rules for ascertaining
the intention of parties. These rules are mentioned hereunder:-
 Goods are ascertained and an unconditional contract is there then at the time when a
contract is made, goods pass to the buyer (MacIntyre, 2018).
 Anything is required to be done with respect to the final delivery of goods, goods cannot
be transferred until the same is done and bring into the notice of the buyer.
 If goods are in the deliverable state but some acts such as test, measure, weigh are
required to do (Sheehan, 2011)

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 If goods are passed to the buyer subject to the matter of approval or on a condition of
return or anything else, then the goods seem to be transferred if the buyer takes the
delivery of goods and approve the same. If buyer retains the goods but does not give
approval then the goods seem to be transferred on the expiry of a time period for return
of goods and in the case of absence of such time, on the expiry of a reasonable time
period.
 If goods are unascertained or future one by description then the goods seem to be
transferred on the unconditional appropriation of the same. Such appropriation seems to
be complete when the seller delivers goods to the carrier, or a buyer or custodier or
another bailee with the intention to transmit the same to the buyer and does not
keep/reserve any right of disposal.
Here in the given case, the TV set was an ascertained good but the installation was required to be
done. In such a scenario, applying the provisions of various rules stipulated under section 18, the
TV set is deemed to be transferred at the incident when the same has been installed to John’s
house and John was properly informed about this.
Question 3
Buyers, as well as seller, are given certain remedies under a contract of sale. These remedies are
mentioned under part VI of Sale of Contract Act 1979. Section 49 and 50 are focused on the
seller’s remedy. As per section 49, a seller can initiate an action against buyer where buyer
refuses to make the payment of goods after the transfer of property in goods or before this when
contract demands to make the payment on a particular day regardless of the delivery of the same
(Virgo and Worthington, 2017). Section 50 of the act focuses on damages for non-acceptance of
goods and states that whenever a buyer reject the delivery of goods or refuse to make the

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payment then the seller can initiate an action for damage recovery. The amount of damage
includes direct as well as indirect damage out of a contract breach by buyer. If a market is
available for the goods in question then the damage will be measured by the variance between
the contract price and the market price of the date on which goods might have been accepted.
Section 51 and 52 states the provisions related to the buyer’s remedy. According to section 51 of
the act, the buyer has the right to ask for damages in those cases where the seller refuses to
deliver goods. Buyer can ask damages for direct as well as the indirect loss that comes out of
such refusal. Here this is to mention that where the market for goods in question is available then
the amount of damages is required to be calculated as a variance between the contract price and
the market price of the day on which goods might have delivered. Section 52 states that the court
on the application of the plaintiff can provide a decree or judgment regarding the specific
performance of the contract and can order to provide goods in an unconditional manner if thinks
fit. Section 53 of the act is also an important section, which provides the buyer’s remedy in case
of breach of warranty (Beale, Fauvarque-Cosson, Rutgers and Vogenauer, 2019). As per this
section, a buyer does not get the entitlement to reject the goods only because the goods do not
fulfill the warranty, nevertheless he/she can set up the breach of the warranty in the reduction of
the price in against of seller in addition to maintaining an action of breach of warranty against
the seller. The amount of damage includes estimated direct as well as indirect loss. If the breach
of warranty is related to the quality of goods then the amount of damages is required to be
calculated as a difference between the value of goods, at the time of delivery and value of goods
if the same would not have breached the warranty.
Question 4
Product liability claim can arise out of a breach of contract, can be made under negligence and

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“Consumer Protection Act 1987”. In order to discuss the statutory provisions, the focus will be
made to the “Consumer Protection Act 1987.” According to section 2 of the act, a buyer can
make the other person liable for a defective product if the same suffer from damage because of
any defect in a product. Section 5 says that for the purpose of this act, damages refer to personal
injury, death or any loss to the property of buyer including land (Legislation.gov.uk, 2019).
Subsection 2 of section 5 is another important section which states that buyer cannot held a
person liable for the damage or loss to the product itself because of a defect in the product. Here
applying these provisions to the given scenario, this is to state that no death or physical injury
happened to John because of a defect in TV. The only loss happened to the TV itself. Therefore,
John does not seem eligible to initiate a claim under the “Consumer Protection Act 1987”.
Conclusion
Conclusively to state that Mr. John would have certain rights under the “Consumer Protection
Act 1987” and “Consumer Right Act of 2015” and can sue the store. Further, buyers have certain
remedies under the Sale of Contract Act 1979 which have also been reviewed in the above
discussion.
References
Beale, H., Fauvarque-Cosson, B., Rutgers, J., and Vogenauer, S., 2019. Cases, materials and text
on contract law. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Consumer Protection Act 1987

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Consumer Right Act of 2015
Crossan, S. (2017) Introductory Scots Law Third Edition: Theory and Practice. UK: Hachette
UK.
Faber, W., and Lurger, B. (2009) England and Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Cyprus. Germany:
Walter de Gruyter.
Finch, E., and Fafinski, S. (2018) Law Express: Contract Law. UK: Pearson UK.
Legislation.gov.uk. (2019) Consumer Protection Act 1987. [online] Available from:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1987/43 [Accessed on 16/07/2019]
MacIntyre, E. (2018) Business Law. UK: Pearson UK.
Rose, F. (2016) Blackstone's Statutes on Commercial and Consumer Law 2016-2017.
UK:Oxford University Press.
Sale of Goods Act 1979
Sheehan, D. (2011) The Principles of Personal Property Law.UK : Bloomsbury Publishing.
Virgo, G. and Worthington, S. (2017) Commercial Remedies. UK: Cambridge University Press.
Watt, J. (2015) Key provisions of the Consumer Rights Act 2015. [online] Available from:
https://www.harpermacleod.co.uk/hm-insights/2015/october/key-provisions-of-the-consumer-
rights-act-2015/ [Accessed on 16/07/2019]