Tricky Return

powerful_Rogue

Something tells me this thread will pop up again in 5 years time......

bod1467

vaio wrote: »

As an example....SoG doesn't (I think) deal explicitly with consequential costs so if I buy a bath, get it fitted & tiled etc and it later develops a fault then for the retailer just to refund the purchase price or replace the bath as per SoG isn't sufficient and I'd need to recover the removal/refitting costs using the common law principles that have been developed over the last couple of hundred years.

Your example doesn't address loss of bargain though, just consequential loss. (I had a similar situation where British Gas replaced a towel radiator valve which then leaked and caused water damage to an internal wall. BG repaired the damage and redecorated - whilst they may have paid for it under their liability insurance, it is a similar situation to your bath example. It is NOT however an example of loss of bargain).

vaio

RosiPossum wrote: »

But they did send the widget, it was faulty, he rejected it. They refunded. It's not like they didn't send it.

yap, and in my example they sent me a bath, sometimes a refund/replacement just isn't enough.

Think back to my student days there is a famous case that involved a buyer buying some goods that the seller intended to ship them via one of the big canals. Before they got shipped the canal got closed for some reason and the seller tried to get out of the contract by saying it was frustrated (ie impossible) and wanted to rescind the contract.

The court decision was that as other shipping routes were available the contract wasn't impossible. The actual ruling was something along the lines of "...just because performance of a contract has become more onerous or expensive than first envisaged isn't a valid reason to get out of the contract...." Upshot was that either seller fulfilled contract or buyer would have been able to source the goods elsewhere and recover any additional costs.

That case isn't too far away from the OP, the seller *could* fulfil the contract by sourcing an equivalent widget from elsewhere and if he doesn't then I'd say the OP could recover the additional costs if he sources one from elsewhere.

Whether the hassle of recovering the costs would be worth it is a different matter

Spank

Shak, you haven't been ripped off, you were just unlucky.
Do you really expect (or think it's fair) the shop to pay you £50 for nothing?

eysha

I have no idea how too - show me.

vaio

bod1467 wrote: »

Your example doesn't address loss of bargain though, just consequential loss. (I had a similar situation where British Gas replaced a towel radiator valve which then leaked and caused water damage to an internal wall. BG repaired the damage and redecorated - whilst they may have paid for it under their liability insurance, it is a similar situation to your bath example. It is NOT however an example of loss of bargain).

Your case is damage caused *by* the defect which I think is qualitatively different to my example where the costs are incurred as an unavoidable part of the SoG remedy but for which SoG doesn't provide explicitly.

Maybe we should use "consequential costs" in the broad sense of costs incurred to put the buyer in the position he would have been in had the breach of contract not occurred which will cover my example, your example and the OP. None are explicitly recoverable under SoG, all are recoverable under common law (although yours would be tort rather than contract I suspect)

wealdroam

eysha wrote: »

I have no idea how too - show me.

Go back to the board index, and click on the blue button towards the top left of the page:

Might also be worth you looking at the Forum Introduction Guide.

vaio

Spank wrote: »

Shak, you haven't been ripped off, you were just unlucky.
Do you really expect (or think it's fair) the shop to pay you £50 for nothing?

Equally is it fair that the OP doesn't end up with what was agreed?

I think contracts are two way and binding on both parties, the shop should get the money agreed and the OP should get the widget agreed.

What if the OP had paid £150 and then seen it for sale at £100? Would he be entitled to get the extra £50 back from the seller?

I'd say no because contracts are binding on both parties

halibut2209

And with those last two paragraphs you've shown what everyone else in this thread is saying

mije1983

powerful_Rogue wrote: »

Something tells me this thread will [STRIKE]pop up again[/STRIKE] still be going in 5 years time......

Corrected it for you :rotfl: