Consumer law – Seán Crossan's Scots Law

Right to refuse?

Thanks to @beamomatic9000 for making this photo available freely on @unsplash 🎁

The COVID-19 crisis continues to throw up some interesting legal questions e.g. employment rights, EU freedom of movement rights, frustration of contract etc.

One area which seems somewhat overlooked is in relation to the actions of many retailers – principally supermarkets and grocery stores – which have been restricting sales of particular items. The items in question include soap, hand gel and sanitiser, bleach, anti-septic wipes, paper towels and even toilet rolls.

The COVID-19 situation has led to panic buying of these essential hygiene items and supermarkets have imposed clear limits on their sale.

Can supermarkets and other retailers impose these sorts of restrictions?

This, of course, takes us back to the basic rules governing the formation of a contract. Retailers are especially guilty when applying the term ‘offer’ to the goods which they stock. It is no such thing: goods on the shelves; on display; or in shop windows are invitations to treat. It is the the customer who is being invited to make the offer (see Fisher v Bell [1961] 3 ALL ER 731 where the English Court of Appeal ruled that a knife displayed in a shop window was not being offered for sale, it was merely an invitation to treat. Lord Parker, the Chief Justice being particularly emphatic on this point).

In the seminal case of Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain v Boots Cash Chemists [1953] 1 QB 401, the judges of the English Court of Appeal helpfully distinguished between an offer and an invitation to treat. The case arose as a result of a provision in the Pharmacy and Poisons Act 1933 which stipulated that the sale of certain medicines must take place in the presence of a registered pharmacist.

Boots Chemists operated a self service system whereby it’s customers were able to place the medicines which they wished to purchase in their shopping baskets. The key question was whether Boots was breaking the law by allowing customers to do this. In other words, was the sale completed when the customer placed the medicines in their baskets? Now, if goods on shelves were to be regarded as ‘offers’, Boots would indeed be breaking the law because customers would be deemed to be ‘accepting’ these ‘offers’ by placing the goods in question in their baskets.

If, on the other hand, the sale was concluded elsewhere i.e. at the cash register where there was always a registered pharmacist on duty, Boots would be fully complying with the Act.

The Court of Appeal concluded that it was the customer who made the offer by presenting the goods at the cash register. The sales assistant (properly supervised by the pharmacist) could conclude matters i.e. accept the offer by ringing the sale up on the cash register. Furthermore, it was always open to the assistant to refuse the customer’s offer. Goods on shelves were, therefore, merely an invitation to treat.

In more normal times, a customer’s offer would and should be refused by retailers because they are an underage person who is attempting to purchase e.g. alcohol, cigarettes or video games or DVDs which are age specific.

So, in this way, retailers are generally within their rights to impose strict limits on the numbers of certain items that customers wish to purchase. The customer can offer to buy 20 bottles of hand gel or sanitiser, but the store will have the right to refuse.

Presently, retailers are putting these sorts of restrictions into place in order to protect and promote public health by giving as many customers, as possible, reasonable access to basic hygiene products. If we co-opt the language of the Equality Act 2010, retailers are putting restrictions in place because these are a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. So, hopefully, such restrictions – if fairly implemented and monitored – will not be subject to a legal challenge on grounds of discrimination.

Related Blog Articles:

https://seancrossansscotslaw.com/2019/12/06/tis-the-season-of-special-offers/

https://seancrossansscotslaw.com/2019/03/27/special-offers/

https://seancrossansscotslaw.com/2019/03/14/too-good-to-be-true/

Copyright Seán J Crossan, 26 March 2020

Avoid!

The above photograph conveys everything that is pleasant about staying in a nice hotel or boutique guesthouse.

Sadly, this was not the case for one couple, Mr and Mrs Jenkinson, who had booked into accommodation (the Broadway Hotel) in the English seaside resort of Blackpool in 2014. The couple were so disappointed by the lack of basic hygiene standards and facilities that they were motivated to leave a review on Tripadvisor – a very bad review, in fact, which did the establishment absolutely no favours.

How did the hotel respond?

Not in the way that you would think the management should have responded i.e. by issuing the couple with a grovelling apology and, possibly, a refund?

No, the couple were checking their credit card statement some days after their review had been posted and noticed that £100 had been charged to their account by the Broadway Hotel. Surely, this must have been some oversight or mistake? Following further enquiries by the couple, they discovered that the hotel had levied the charge because they had the nerve to leave a bad review on Tripadvisor about the very poor standards they had experienced while staying there.

When the couple objected to this, the establishment told them to check the small print in its booking documents – which Mrs Jenkinson had admittedly signed. True enough, buried somewhere in the small print was a statement to the effect:

“Despite the fact that repeat customers and couples love our hotel, your friends and family may not. … For every bad review left on any website, the group organiser will be charged a maximum £100 per review.“

Now, the Broadway Hotel was by no means luxury accommodation (the Jenkinsons had paid £36 for an overnight stay), but even budget hotels must meet basic standards such as adequate hygiene. The hotel failed miserably to meet these standards. More and more often, we do rely on the experiences of other people to guide us in our choices as consumers and the Jenkinsons were posting a fair comment review on Tripadvisor. The ability of businesses and traders to prevent consumers doing this would clearly be a retrograde development.

At the time, the story went viral and Mr and Mrs Jenkinson were invited on to the BBC Television’s Breakfast show to talk about their experiences. Needless to say, the hotel got more than it bargained for with the adverse media publicity and Blackpool Council’s Trading Standards Department taking a keen interest in its business practices.

A link to the story on the BBC website about the Jenkinsons’ experiences at the Broadway Hotel, Blackpool in 2014 can be found below:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30100973

Was this clause enforceable?

At the time of the story breaking, I fortuitously happened to be teaching Unfair Terms in Contract Law to two of my classes. I had never seen a clause like this before and informed my students that it was very unlikely to be capable of enforcement by the hotel given its blatant unfairness – let alone the implications for freedom of speech in the UK.

I’ve long wanted to write about the Jenkinsons’ experience and I was reminded of their story some weeks ago when teaching a group of students about unfair terms in contracts.

Normally, when I discuss this area of the law, I make students aware that businesses used to be extremely trigger happy when using all sorts of unfair terms in contracts in order to avoid their responsibilities to customers.

Prior to the introduction of the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 (about more later), businesses and other organisations could exclude or limit their liability for causing death and personal injury so long as adequate notice of the existence of the term was brought to the attention of the other party to the contract.

So, for example, if a garage owner wished to exclude his liability to a customer who put a vehicle in for repairs or a service, he could simply alert the customer to the existence of an exclusion or limitation clause in the contract. The customer leaves the car to have the brakes fixed; picks the car up later; the mechanic has been negligent and not carried out the work properly; the customer later suffers a terrible accident because the brakes haven’t been fixed. Hey presto, no need to worry because the garage owner could point to his standard terms of business which contained an exclusion clause. In effect, the exclusion clause was a get out of jail card.

Another tactic often deployed was where the business could argue that the customer had constructive notice of the existence of the unfair term e.g. the customer should have read the documents presented to him or her. Mrs Jenkinson had signed the booking documents presented to her by the Broadway Hotel. She later admitted that she did not read the terms because she did not have her spectacles with her.

On occasion, the courts might intervene and side with a party objecting to the enforcement of an unfair term under a number of judicial doctrines:

the repugnancy rule
fundamental breach
the contra proferentum rule

Despite judicial intervention, the odds were still stacked against parties who wished to challenge the inherent unfairness and abusive nature of attempts by traders and businesses to exclude or limit their liability.

Sensibly, the UK Parliament decided to tackle what was becoming the Wild West of contractual terms and passed the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 which made such attempts to evade liability automatically void.

Generally speaking, the Act made it much harder (but not impossible) for businesses to impose other unfair terms on consumers. Businesses, on the other hand, were still, advised to read the small print of any agreements that they were contemplating entering, although courts would be more sympathetic if a larger business tried to use its unequal bargaining power to impose unfair terms on a smaller business.

The European Union also passed legislation (European Council Directive 93/13 on Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts and, for a while, the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations of 1994 and 1999 respectively were in force. These were later repealed and replaced by the Consumer Rights Act 2015, although the terms of the Directive live on in this legislation (remember: EU Law is hardwired into UK national laws).

Along the way, the Enterprise Act 2002 and the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 severely restricted the ability of businesses and traders to impose very unfavourable terms on consumers.

The net effect of all of this legislation was that consumers were really protected against the imposition of unfair terms by traders and businesses. Consumers were often deemed to be the weaker party in a relationship with traders and businesses and, therefore, needed to be protected.

Returning to the Jenkinsons’ experience at the a Broadway Hotel, it is worth emphasising that the couple were being provided with accommodation services as consumers and, therefore, would have been entitled to the benefit of existing UK consumer protection laws on the statute books in 2014.

Had this incident occurred in 2020, the Jenkinsons would, of course, have been able to challenge the legality of the penalty clause primarily in terms of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 and the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

Conclusion

Happily, we have come a long way in consumer law where businesses could previously impose all sorts of unfair, not to say downright abusive, terms on customers.

We are now in a position, where UK consumers will be protected by legislative safeguards which should ensure that these types of terms will not be permitted to stand i.e. they will be automatically void or simply unenforceable. The penalty clause which the Jenkinsons experienced would doubtless have fallen foul of consumer protection legislation had the issue got anywhere near a court room. Nonetheless, it was an interesting example of the inventiveness of businesses regarding the creation of new types of unfair terms in contracts.

It remains the case, however, that in business to business contracts (or in private transactions), it will be highly advisable for parties to remain wary about the potential unfairness of contractual terms. Only the most outrageous and downright abusive terms (such as excluding or limiting liability for death or personal injury) will be automatically void – no matter how much notice of their existence has been given by the party seeking to rely on them. If a business is seeking to have a clause declared void or unenforceable, the debate to be had in terms of the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 will often centre around the perceived reasonableness (or otherwise) of the clause.

Copyright Seán J Crossan, 1 March 2020

Foreign objects or I’ve got a bone to pick with you … (Part 2)

Photo by Owen Beard on Unsplash

One of the first articles which I wrote for this Blog concerned the liability of producers and suppliers for foreign or dangerous objects.

The article had been inspired by an incident at a Primark store where a member of the public had sensationally discovered part of a human finger bone in a pair of socks.

This gave me a very convenient opening to review the area of product liability. The leading case, of course, is Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562, [1932] SC (HL) 31, [1932] ScLT 317 or the ‘snail in the ginger beer bottle’. This decision of the House of Lords established the foundations of the modern law of negligence – in Scotland and in England.

Mrs Donoghue did not have a contract of sale with Mr Minchella, the seller of the lemonade bottle and, therefore, she could not bring a claim for damages in terms of the (then) Sale of Goods Act 1893. Even today, Mrs Donoghue would not have a remedy against the seller under the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

So, who could Mrs Donoghue bring a claim against? The manufacturer would seem to be the logical response to this question, but this is the application of hindsight in late 2019. Several years before the Donoghue case, a claim against a manufacturer for harm caused by a dangerous product had been comprehensively rejected by the Inner House of the Court of Session (see Mullen v A G Barr & Co Ltd [1929] SC 461). The House of Lords was, therefore, breaking new legal ground when it found in Mrs Donoghue’s favour against Stevenson, the manufacturer of the lemonade bottle. Stevenson owed a duty of care to the ultimate consumer of the product – irrespective of whether this individual had a contract of sale with the company.

Since Donoghue v Stevenson, this area of the law has developed considerably with the UK Parliament passing the Consumer Protection Act 1987. Part 1 of this Act established a regime of strict liability in relation to dangerous products. Previously, the claimant would be required to prove fault on the part of the manufacturer.

Theoretically, it’s now much easier for a consumer to win a claim against a manufacturer (or someone in the chain of supply) if s/he have suffered injury or damage to property as a result of exposure to dangerous products.

Returning to Primark, the company and the Police have conducted an investigation into the incident and they have not been able to establish responsibility, anywhere in the chain of supply, for the bone’s inclusion in the pair of socks.

It looks as if the affair will go down as one of life’s unsolved mysteries.

A link to the latest developments in the Primark case can be found below:

https://edition.independent.co.uk/editions/uk.co.independent.issue.281219/data/9261571/index.html

Termination of contract

Photo by Craig Whitehead on Unsplash

It has just been announced that the well known UK construction company Balfour Beatty has just had a contract terminated by one of its clients.

The client in question is MI6 or the UK Special Intelligence Service, the equivalent of the CIA and the employer of Britain’s best known (but fictional) spy – James Bond. The Service is based at Vauxhall Cross on the River Thames.

Termination of contract can be a pretty dry area, but mix it in with the world of secret intelligence services and you have a story that will be of interest to a potentially large audience.

Who cares?

The company’s shareholders will almost certainly care about this and a large part of the public will be keenly interested to know the facts behind this development.

What went wrong?

Balfour Beatty had been contracted to refurbish the HQ of MI6. In order to carry out the job, the company had in its possession floor plans of the building. Somehow these plans went missing – although they were later recovered – but too late the damage had been done.

Mindful of the mind boggling ramifications of this huge security breach, the UK Foreign Office, which has overall responsibility for the work of MI6, promptly removed Balfour Beatty from further involvement in the middle of the refurbishment project.

A link to the story as reported in The Financial Times can be found below:

https://www.ft.com/content/81d4ac8c-28d9-11ea-9a4f-963f0ec7e134

I would assume that the Foreign Office is on pretty safe legal ground when it made the decision to terminate Balfour Beatty’s contract. The loss of highly confidential documents by the company could represent nothing less than a material breach of contract. This arises in situations where one of the parties acts in such a way that it completely undermines the contract. The breach, in other words, is so serious because it goes to the very roots of the contract.

The victim of the breach can then potentially use the remedy of rescission i.e. terminate the agreement. The remedy of damages is also available to the victim.

Rescission is actually a much more common remedy than you otherwise might think. In terms of both the Sale of Goods Act 1979 and the Consumer Rights Act 2015, a buyer may choose to terminate a contract of sale in situations where the trader supplies goods that fail to comply with, for example, the implied duty of satisfactory quality.

In employment contracts, an employer is entitled to dismiss an employee in circumstances where the individual commits an act of gross misconduct (theft, violence, gross negligence or failure to follow lawful orders). The Employment Rights Act 1996 recognises that there will be situations where the employer is entitled to terminate the contract of employment and there will be nothing unfair or wrongful about the dismissal (presuming, of course, that proper disciplinary procedures have been followed).

In the well known Scottish employment law decision of Macari v Celtic Football & Athletic Club [1999] IRLR 787 SC, a football manager had his contract terminated quite legally by his employer owing to the fact that he had repeatedly failed to follow lawful and reasonable orders. This failure by the employee to honour the terms of his contract was nothing less than a material breach of the agreement.

Conversely, an employee may choose to regard the employment contract as terminated in situations where the employer has breached the implied duty of trust and good faith. This could occur where the employee was subjected to bullying and harassment by colleagues and the employer (being aware of this) does nothing meaningful or concrete to deal with this. In the face of the employer’s indifference (or collusion), the employee could regard him/herself as constructively dismissed.

Particularly serious for the employer could be situations where the bullying or harassment are motivated by hostility towards an individual’s protected characteristic in terms of the Equality Act 2010 e.g. age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation.

Back to Balfour Beatty: it looks as the company has no one to blame for this mess, but themselves. MI6 or the Foreign Office obviously felt that the loss of sensitive (Top Secret?) documents was such a serious development that there was no choice to terminate the contract with immediate effect.

Copyright – Seán J Crossan, 29 December 2019

No smoke without fire …

Photo by Patrick Hendry on Unsplash

It would seem that Whirlpool, the domestic appliance manufacturer of Creda, Hotpoint, Indesit and Proline tumble dryers does not have its sorrows to seek as product defects (which could endanger the safety of the public) continue to plague the brand. The appliances have been nicknamed the ‘killer dryers’ because they may represent a fire risk.

Manufacturers of products have a duty of care to ensure that their products are free from defects which could cause damage to property or death or personal injury.

Related Blog article:

Help! The tumble dryer’s on fire!

https://seancrossansscotslaw.com/2019/06/14/help-the-tumble-dryers-on-fire/

Last week, the company admitted that nearly half a million of its appliances could have a serious manufacturing defect which could cause property damage and, more seriously, death or personal injury.

Whirlpool’s (civil) liability to victims is said to be strict in terms of a number of Acts of Parliament:

Sale of Goods Act 1979
Consumer Protection Act 1987
Consumer Rights Act 2015

There is also the issue of possible criminal liability for dangerous and defective products in terms of the Consumer Protection Act 1987.

Potentially, Whirlpool could be liable to a large group of people:

Business customers (retailers and traders) who purchased products from Whirlpool directly in terms of the Sale of Goods Act 1979; and
The ultimate consumer of the products i.e. any one who does not have a contract of sale with the retailer or manufacturer, but who may suffer property damage, injury or death as a result of exposure to the dangerous product (see Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] UKHL 100) in terms of the Consumer Protection Act 1987.

Those consumers who purchased dangerous item(s) directly from a retailer will, of course, have a contract of sale in terms of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and they can take legal action against the retailer. The retailer can then pursue a claim against the manufacturer or supplier from whom they obtained the goods.

An excellent link to an article about the problems facing Whirlpool appliances can be found below by clicking on the link to the Which? website:

https://www.which.co.uk/news/2019/12/whirlpool-announces-recall-of-up-to-519000-indesit-and-hotpoint-fire-risk-washing-machines-in-the-uk/?utm_source=whichcouk&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=whirlpoolrecall171219

A link to the story on the Sky News website can be found below:

http://news.sky.com/story/half-a-million-whirlpool-washing-machines-recalled-over-fire-risk-11889023

Copyright Seán J Crossan, 23 December 2019

Nemo dat quod non habet!

What is the legal position if goods are stolen from their true owner? Can a thief pass good title (ownership) to an innocent third party? Obviously, someone who knowingly purchases stolen goods cannot obtain good title to them. Such a purchaser will have acted in bad faith and will probably be guilty of the crime of reset.

In Scotland, we often use the maxim or saying nemo dat quod non habet i.e. if you’re not the owner (or someone authorised by the owner), you cannot transact in the goods and pass ownership or title to an innocent third party.

A number of stories have appeared in the media in the last few days which have made me think about the possible application of the legal principle of nemo dat quod non habet.

The first story concerned an attempt by the Republic of Italy to have a stolen painting returned, which is believed to have been taken by the Nazis during World War II:

The Uffizi Gallery has replaced it with a copy. The exact location of the original is a mystery.

Might this Nazi-stolen painting be returned?

The second story concerned the theft of a Picasso painting which occurred slightly more recently:

Stolen Picasso painting found by ‘art’s Indiana Jones’ after 20 years

http://news.sky.com/story/stolen-picasso-painting-found-by-arts-indiana-jones-after-20-years-11675555

Clearly, an individual who knowingly purchases stolen property from the thief or retains possession of the item(s) cannot acquire good title or ownership. The passage of the years does not diminish the fact that the goods are stolen property.

An excellent example of the legal principle of nemo dat quod non habet can be seen in the following case:

Rowland v Divall [1923] in April 1922, Divall bought an ‘Albert’ motor car from a man who had stolen it from the true owner. One month later, Divall sold the car to a dealer named Rowland for £334. Rowland repainted the car and sold it to a Colonel Railsden for £400. In September, the police seized the car from Railsden.

Held: by the English Court of Appeal that the car had to be returned to its true owner. Railsden brought a successful action to recover the price of £400 that he had paid to Rowland. Rowland, in turn, successfully sued Divall for £334.

Poor Divall, however, was not so fortunate. As he had purchased the car directly from the thief, he would need to track this person down in order to initiate an action for recovery of the purchase price. Thieves, by their very nature, tend not to hang around waiting to be caught and they have a nasty habit of vanishing into thin air.

Section 17 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015

This section of the Act provides very important protection to consumers by ensuring that a trader has the right to sell the goods which are the subject matter of the contract. In a contract of sale, this will mean that the seller must have the right to sell the goods at the time of the actual sale or, if the contract is an agreement to sell, s/he will have the right to sell the goods at the time when the property is to pass to the buyer.

Problems usually arise in this area when the consumer later discovers that the seller has supplied her with stolen goods.

In many respects, Section 17 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 is very similar to Section 12 of the Sale of Goods Act 1979 (which previously regulated consumer contracts for the sale of goods).

Although the Consumer Rights Act applies to transactions where the trader is only a part-owner of the goods, failure by the trader to disclose to the consumer that he is only a part-owner of the goods and, that consequently, the buyer will only be entitled to a part-share in the goods would represent a breach of Section 17.

In situations where the trader can only give a consumerbuyer a limited title to the goods, she is duty bound to inform the buyer thathe only enjoys limited rights in the property and, therefore, it will beentirely the buyer’s choice if he wishes to proceed with the transaction. Fulland frank disclosure by the trader of any limitations in respect of his titleto the goods means that, at the very least, the buyer will have made aninformed choice if he proceeds with the contract – albeit under somewhatdisadvantaged circumstances.

The main protection that Section 17 gives to theconsumer buyer is that the trader (the seller) is promising that she has theright to sell the goods to the buyer. So, if the goods supplied were stolen,then the seller would be in breach of the duty imposed by this Section of theAct and the buyer would be entitled to reclaim the whole of the purchase pricefrom the seller.

The consequences of abreach of Section 17 by a trader

A breach of Section 17(1) of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 by a trader is extremely serious and this reflected in Section 19(6) of the Act as it will give the consumer the right to reject the goods.

Quiet possession

Another important protection for consumers contained in Section 17 is that she has the right to enjoy quiet possession of the goods after the contract has been implemented. Effectively, the trader promises that no third party can dispute the consumer’s right to own the goods or possess them which would disturb his enjoyment of them. Any disturbance of the consumer’s right of quiet possession by third parties will mean that a potential claim lies against the trader.

Other sales

The Sale of Goods Act 1979 applies to the following transactions:

1. Business to business sales (B2B)

2. Consumer to business sales (C2B)

3. Consumer to consumer sales (C2C)

The general rule regarding the transfer of title to corporeal moveable property (tangible, moveable property) from seller to buyer is that only the true owner of the goods (or her authorised agents) can pass ownership of the goods. A thief, for example, can almost never pass good title to a third party if the goods were stolen by him or the contract was induced by fraud (see Morrison v Robertson (1908)).

Section 12(1) of the Sale of Goods Act 1979 offers protection to a buyer who purchases corporeal moveable property in good faith from most of the negative consequences of the nemo dat quod non habet rule. It states that in a contract of sale … there is an implied condition on the part of the seller that in the case of a sale, he has a right to sell the goods and, in the case of an agreement to sell, he will have a right to sell the goods at the time when the property is to pass. This means that the buyer will be able to sue for the return of the price of the goods from the seller (who had no right to sell them in the first place). This applies even where the buyer has used the goods.

Furthermore, Section 21 of the Sale of Goods Act 1979 states that a buyer will not acquire good title to goods in a situation where the person selling them is not the owner and/or lacks the authority to sell them. In other words, the buyer cannot become the owner of the goods and the true owner will be able to reclaim the goods even from a person who bought the property in good faith.

Section 12(2)(b) states that the buyer has the right toenjoy quiet possession of the goods and any disturbance of this right by thirdparties will mean that a potential claim lies against the seller.

Section 12(3) addresses situations where the seller can only give the buyer a limited title to the goods. If such a situation applies to the sale of goods, the seller is duty bound to inform the buyer that he only enjoys limited rights in the property and, therefore, it will be entirely the buyer’s choice if he wishes to proceed with the sale. However, at least the buyer will have made an informed choice.

In many respects, the protection offered to a buyer purchasing corporeal, moveable property in good faith is remarkably similar to those rights found in the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

It will not always be possible, however, to return the stolen property to the true owner when the goods have been converted into other goods and cannot be retrieved e.g. when cattle have been stolen, slaughtered and eaten. In such situations, the true owner will have to be content with an award of damages based on the value of the property now lost to her forever.

Exceptions to Nemo dat quod non habet

The nemo dat quod non habet rule is only a general rule. Like most general rules in the law, however, there are a number of exceptions under both the common law and statute which might mean that someone who is not the true owner of the goods can pass good title to a third party. The practical effect of this is that the third party will often become the lawful owner of the goods despite the original owner’s protests.

Hopefully, buyers purchasing property in good faith which turns out to be stolen or having a defective title, will not fall into one of these exceptions to the general rule!

Conclusion

An innocent (or good faith) buyer of goods might discover, to their horror, that the property is stolen. The general rule is that a thief cannot pass good title to a third party – even if such a person is entirely honest. The rule is often expressed as nemo dat quod non habet.

Both the Sale of Goods Act 1979 and the Consumer Rights Act 2015 provide important legal protection to good faith buyers of stolen property (and more generally in situations where the seller’s title to goods is defective in some way).

The main protection that Section 12 (Sale of Goods Act 1979) and Section 17 (Consumer Rights Act 2015) gives to a buyer is that the seller is promising that s/he has the right to sell the goods to the buyer. So, if the goods were stolen, then the seller would be in breach of the duty imposed by the relevant legislation and the buyer would be entitled to reclaim the whole of the purchase price from the seller.

Stuck at red …

Photo by Erwan Hesry on Unsplash

Two interesting stories appeared in the UK media today which highlight the important role of regulatory bodies in the field of consumer protection. This is a topic which has already been considered in a number of recent posts (Watchdogs and No more heartbreak hotel?) both published on 14 March 2019.

The first story involves the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) which has effectively shown the red light to the proposed merger between the two supermarket chains, ASDA and Sainsbury’s. Any newly merged company would have tremendous economic power and such a development could adversely affect the interests of UK consumers e.g. by restricting consumer choice. In response to this setback, both retailers have offered to sell off approximately 150 supermarkets and some petrol stations in the hope that the CMA may eventually be persuaded to allow the merger to go ahead.

The second story involves the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) which has banned the use of adverts by 150 autism therapists who claim that a controversial practice, involving high doses of vitamin C and zinc, known as CEASE (Complete Elimination of Autistic Spectrum Expression) can ‘cure’ the condition. The ASA has issued these therapists with an enforcement notice telling them to stop making and advertising such claims that CEASE is an effective treatment for autism. According to the ASA, these assertions are being made without “proper scientific foundation” and “could seriously harm children”.

Links to the two stories can be found below:

Ad watchdog orders 150 ‘autism cure’ therapists to stop
http://news.sky.com/story/ad-watchdog-orders-150-autism-cure-therapists-to-stop-11672357

Sainsbury’s and Asda offer to sell supermarkets to merge

The chains tell the UK competition watchdog they would sell up to 150 supermarkets to be able to merge.

Too good to be true

Photo by Justin Lim on Unsplash

In Chapter 4 of Introductory Scots Law, I discuss the importance of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.

An interesting story about the Regulations was reported by the BBC last week.

The parent company of SCS, the well known furniture retailer, was successfully prosecuted under the Regulations at Aberdeen Sheriff Court.

The offence?

SCS had displayed posters claiming that all products had been reduced as part of its Black Friday sales event in November 2017. This was not true: the price of three sofas had been substantially increased by the company several days before the promotional event (one product had been increased by as much as £800). The Trading Standards Department at Aberdeen City Council had been investigating the company’s pricing policies over a long period and this is how the prosecution was initiated by alerting the Procurator Fiscal Service to the situation.

Sheriff Ian Wallace was firmly of the view that the company’s use of deliberately misleading advertorial material (the posters) for financial advantage was a breach of the Regulations. The parent company of SCS was fined £6,000 by the Sheriff.

A link to the story on the BBC website can be found below:

Sofa firm fined for hiking prices before Black Friday

The Regulations

The Regulations came into force on 26 May 2008 and were implemented into UK law as a result of the European Union’s Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (2005/29/EC). The Directive is further evidence of the European Union’s desire to standardise or harmonise consumer law across the member states and to ensure that consumers in the Single European Market and the European Economic Area benefit from tougher legislation which aims to tackle disreputable trading and retailing practices by businesses.

Brexit alert!!!: the Directive has been implemented into UK law via the Regulations and will continue to be part of domestic law until such time as any future Westminster Parliament decides to repeal these important consumer laws.

The most important feature of the Regulations is that they impose a general duty on retailers and traders to act fairly and honestly in their dealings with consumers. More specifically, the Regulations target particular trading practices which are deemed to be aggressive or misleading where consumers are concerned and certain practices will be banned altogether.

As the title of the Regulations suggests it will be consumers i.e. individuals who purchase products for their own private use who will benefit the most from the protection offered by the new legislation. For the most part, business or non-consumer contracts will not be affected, but there may be situations where such contracts can have an impact on consumers and, therefore, the Regulations might apply.

The general prohibition (Regulation 3)

Regulation 3 prohibits, in a general sense, unfair commercial practices. A commercial practice will be regarded as unfair if the retailer or trader has behaved in a way which is not professionally diligent and if it materially distorts or is likely to materially distort the behaviour of the average consumer. The essential thing to focus on here is that the behaviour of the retailer or trader (whether by act or omission) has caused the consumer to make a decision which has left him/her materially disadvantaged. In other words, the consumer has made a decision which s/he would probably not have made if the retailer or trader had acted with honesty and integrity.

Regulation 2 also explains what is meant by the term material distortion. A material distortion might occur in situations where a trader behaves in such a way towards a consumer which could cause the consumer to make a decision which would significantly alter his or her behaviour and thus prevent him or her from being able to make an informed decision about the product.

Misleading commercial practices (Regulations 5-7)

Regulations 5–7 ban commercial practices by a trader which are deemed to be misleading (whether such practices involve an act or omission) or aggressive and again where the average consumer is influenced to such an extent whereby they make a different decision which, in the short or long term, could be harmful or detrimental to his or her interests. It will be necessary for the courts to consider evidence as to what is an aggressive or misleading commercial practice by a trader or retailer and the likely effect of such conduct on consumers. If a consumer can demonstrate that a trader behaved in a dishonest or unreasonable way and this led him or her to suffer real harm as a result there will surely be a strong case to answer.

No more heartbreak hotel?

In Chapter 1 of Introductory Scots Law, I discussed alternative methods of resolving issues or disputes which may have legal consequences.

In particular, I focused on the role of regulatory bodies which can assist members of the public e.g. consumers to lodge complaints and have these disputes resolved relatively inexpensively.

One of these regulatory bodies with an important role to play in consumer law is the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) . This organisation aims to ensure that there is a level playing field for consumers and that businesses do not exploit an often dominant position in the market place.

A recent story which threw some light on the work of the CMA concerned misleading pricing and marketing policies which were being used by some hotel booking websites. In particular, the CMA found that some booking companies were using high pressure tactics to get consumers to finalise a booking. A favourite tactic being used by the booking sites was to give consumers the impression that demand for rooms at certain hotels was far greater than was actually the case.

Consumers do have recourse to the law – the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Practices Regulations 2008 is one such example (see Chapter 4 of Introductory Scots Law). That said, taking individual legal action can be fraught with risk for consumers. It is often better if a regulator, such as the CMA, is willing to go to the barricades on behalf of consumers generally in an attempt to get businesses to play fair – either by means of (gentle) persuasion or by threats of legal action.

As a result of the intervention by the CMA, hotel booking sites will now have to behave more transparently in their interactions with actual and potential customers.

A link to a CMA press release concerning hotel booking websites can be found below:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/hotel-booking-sites-to-make-major-changes-after-cma-probe

A link to a BBC report about the CMA investigation can be found below:

I saw this on the BBC News App and thought you should see it:

Hotel booking sites to end ‘misleading’ sales

Hotels agree to be clearer about discount claims and stop high-pressure selling tactics.

The Consumer’s right to reject defective goods

Photo by Mitchell Gaiser on Unsplash

In Chapter 2 of Introductory Scots Law, I discussed the remedies for breach of contract. In Chapter 4, I look specifically at the remedy of rescission in relation to a consumer contract for the sale of goods. We have now had the Consumer Rights Act 2015 in place for several years. An interesting case in terms of the legislation has just been heard by the Sheriff Appeal Court in Edinburgh.

In Christina Tenant Johnston & Peter Johnston v R & J Leather (Scotland) Ltd [2019] SAC (Civ) 1 LIV-SG781-17, Sheriff Andrew Cubie decided that Mr and Mrs Johnston (the consumers) had every right to dispose of defective furniture after they had clearly communicated their desire to the trader (R & J Leather Ltd) to reject the defective goods with which they had been supplied under the contract of sale. The consumers were seeking to obtain a refund of the purchase price for the goods in terms of Section 20 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 i.e. they had clearly expressed their desire to rescind or cancel their contract with the trader. The consumers sent letters to the trader via recorded delivery on a number of occasions in which they stated that they wished to cancel the contract. They even involved their local Member of Parliament in the dispute, but this did nothing to resolve the dispute either. In the letters, the Johnstons asked the trader to arrange uplift of the furniture. The trader failed to retrieve the furniture.

Mrs Johnston raised an action under simple procedure at Livingstone Sheriff Court in order to recover the purchase price of the contract goods. The trader did not defend the action and the Sheriff made a decree in favour of Mrs Johnston for payment of the purchase price of the goods. Mrs Johnston had asked the Sheriff to include in the decree the stipulation that traders should make arrangements to have the goods uplifted from her home. The Sheriff choose not to issue an Order in this regard. At no point after this, did the trader seek to have the goods uplifted from the Johnston family home. The Johnstons then made the decision to give the furniture away to a third party. This was quite an understandable on their part because they honestly believed that the court action had settled the matter conclusively in their favour.

They had something of shock coming because R & J Leather Ltd decided to have the Sheriff’s decree recalled on the grounds that it had been wrongly designed [designated] in Mrs Johnston’s original summons. A new hearing was arranged, this time with the trader correctly designed in the summons and, additionally, Mr Johnston was permitted to join his wife’s action as a co-claimant. After a two day hearing, the Sheriff made a decision in favour of the Johnstons: they had the right to an Order for payment of the purchase price of the goods and they were justified in disposing of the goods by giving them away to a third party because of the trader’s many failures to uplift them.

The trader then appealed to the Sheriff Appeal Court.

Finding in favour of the consumers and rejecting the trader’s appeal, Sheriff Cubie stated that:

“The rejection [by the consumers] was made immediately and unequivocally. The Johnstons made repeated attempts directly and through their MP to make contact. R&J deliberately avoided engagement with them. The suite could not be stored indefinitely. The Johnstons legitimately considered that the court order had brought matters to an end. By their attitude, R&J effectively abandoned their right to seek recovery; there is a limit to the occasions which a party can be expected to remind sellers of the rejection. In ordinary course, the buyer should retain the goods for return; but in this case I consider that the seller’s actions or inactions were in such terms as to entitle the buyer to do as they wished with the goods.”

A link to Sheriff Cubie’s opinion can be found below:

https://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/docs/default-source/cos-general-docs/pdf-docs-for-opinions/2019-sac-(civ)-001.pdf?sfvrsn=0

Conclusion

The lesson to be learned for traders from this case is that they will be under a duty in terms of Section 20 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 to act quickly in order to uplift goods which have been rightly rejected by consumers. The duty on consumers to make the defective goods available for uplift by traders following rejection is not an open ended or indefinite obligation on their part. Traders which take a cavalier or reckless approach by failing to uplift the goods in a timely fashion may well live to regret this.

In his judgement (at paragraphs 28 & 29), Sheriff Cubie clearly lays out the respective duties of the parties following rejection of the goods:

[28] “It is clear that when a consumer exercises a right to reject faulty goods, there is no duty to return the goods to the seller. All the consumer needs to do is make the goods available to the seller. That imposes an onus on the seller to come and collect the goods if they wish to.

[29] “The duty to make the goods available cannot be without limit of time or unqualified. In considering the nature and extent of the duty to retain goods which have been rejected, the court is entitled to take into account a number of factors, including but not restricted to –

1. the timescale within which rejection was intimated;
2. the nature of the goods;
3. the practicality of providing storage;
4. the nature, extent and frequency of communications sent by the consumers to the
seller;
5. any response, or lack of response, from the sellers;
6. the length of time for which goods were retained; and
7. whether proceedings have been raised.”