Student number: 1400547; Word count:2,173 words
The Sale of Goods Act 1979 is a consolidation of the 1893 act and subsequent legislation which places numerous legal obligations on business sellers apart from the agreed express contractual terms. These terms, although not expressly provided for in the contract are fictionally ‘incorporated’ into the contract for consumer protection and also because the contract does not make any commercial sense without them, they are referred to as implied terms. The statutory implied terms that concern sale of goods are embedded in section 13-15 of the 1979 act and in practice do not affect each other like in Arcos Ltd v E A Ronaasen & Son where the goods were of satisfactory quality and fit …show more content…
Take the 1967 case of Beale v Taylor, which involved a sale of a car described in the advert as a “…Herald convertible, white, 1961, twin carbs…”, the court of appeal by Sellers L.J’s judgement on the case established that the caveat emptor rule has been modified to caveat venditor and went ahead to say that there is a sale by description even where the buyer has seen the goods if the deviation of the goods from the description is not apparent. Based on these precedents the law’s stance on the matter can said to be established as there being a sale by description even when the buyer has seen the product before the completion of the contract of sale but fast forward a few years later to the case Harlington & Leinster v Hull Fine Art where there was a sale of a painting which was a specific sale where the product was described to the buyers being by a German impressionist yet it was held that this was not a sale by description like Beale v Taylor and this is what has lawyers going the law is so convoluted on the issue of the application of the statutory implied terms. Taking a closer look at the Harlington v Hull fine art case, it was noted that prior to final completion of the contract with specialised buyers who should have known what they were buying by sellers (who where not experts in German impressionist paintings) the buyers also sent their experts to examine …show more content…
The case of Jewson Ltd v Boyhaninvolving the sale of energy efficient boilers lets sellers know that in relation to quality and fitness for purpose “factors peculiar to the purpose of the particular buyer”. For the section to apply at all the seller has to be a business seller, this was established in the notable case of Stevenson & anor v Rogerswhere it was held to include one off transactions where the vendor was already a business seller it didn 't matter what exactly he was selling at that point. This is distinguished by Dillion L.J.’s judgement in the case of R & B Customs Brokers Co. Ltd. v United Dominions Trust Ltddifferentiating between a thing being incidental to the business or an integral part of the business, the latter being a sale “in the course of