Amazon court case

Alderbank

The OP has not revealed the actual breach which was claimed. This matters.

If the claim was breach of s12 of the Consumer Rights Act, which is likely, then a further term of CRA (s19) says 'the consumer has the right to recover from the trader the amount of any costs incurred by the consumer as a result of the breach, up to the amount of the price paid or the value of other consideration given for the goods.'

This seems to be what the judge directed and the reason why he did so, so no grounds for appeal if that was the only claim.

Helpfully, s19 goes on to say 'This Chapter does not prevent the consumer seeking other remedies...

Those other remedies include claiming damages...'

The OP has not revealed whether they sought any other remedies apart from the CRA.

Aylesbury_Duck

I certainly wouldn't be spending money on more legal action for a case already dismissed by a court and for a product worth just £250.  That would be madness.

You'd genuinely be better off spending a small sum on hypnotherapy/counselling or similar, to help put it out of your mind.  A heightened sense of justice is admirable, but not when it becomes obsessive and unhealthy.

Okell

Autumn2024 said:

Thanks Okell,

Refund, issued timely (within reasonable time scope) would have been acceptable, if it gave the consumer the chance to make alternative arrangement within the time scope. Late refund - not so. I incurred loss due to poor service - loss of earning, cost of replacement etc. 

Yes, I did express myself rather ineptly (very obvious I am not a lawyer), I accept that with hindsight. I took the promise of "guaranteed delivery" at a face value, I am a typacal "man on Clapham omnibus". The basis of the claim was breach of contract, and implied failure to act with reasonable care and skill. 

I am not playing a secret squirrel - I thought the details were not important, so gave a brief outline. The valus of the order is about £250, if that makes any difference. The hearing was struck out during the hearing because the company made an application for strike off on the basis that there was no case to answer, and during the hearing the judge decided that the case should be struck off because he agreed with the reasoning of the defendant. 

Well the details would have been important if you'd asked for assistance before filing your Particulars of Claim, but as the judge struck out your claim, that boat seems to have sailed.

If your claim basically just stated that you'd suffered a loss because the refund was late then that doesn't demonstrate any legal foundation for your claim and the judge was right to strike it out.

Normally your way forward after losing a case would be to appeal to a higher court, but for £250** I doubt it would be worth it and you'd be throwing good money after bad.

But it sounds from the additional detail that you've now given - details are always important - that you didn't lose the case but that the judge struck your claim out.

I'm no expert on court procedure so I'm not certain, but I wonder whether you may have an opportunity to refile your claim, but making sure that you have a legal basis for it this time?  I simply don't know if having the claim struck out kills it dead, or whether you can submit a suitably amended a claim.

I'm sure others will know.

You might have a claim for loss of bargain, but without knowing the details nobody can advise you.  You might still just be wasting your time and money...


** You say the value of the order was about £250, but if you recieved a refund why is the value of the order relevant?  Surely your loss that you need compensating for is whatever extra expense you had to incur because the stuff was never delivered in time.  that's the loss of bargain and that's what you'd be claiming for.  But you'd still have the problem to overcome that delivery times aren't guranteed.

Undervalued

Okell said:

Autumn2024 said:

Thanks Okell,

Refund, issued timely (within reasonable time scope) would have been acceptable, if it gave the consumer the chance to make alternative arrangement within the time scope. Late refund - not so. I incurred loss due to poor service - loss of earning, cost of replacement etc. 

Yes, I did express myself rather ineptly (very obvious I am not a lawyer), I accept that with hindsight. I took the promise of "guaranteed delivery" at a face value, I am a typacal "man on Clapham omnibus". The basis of the claim was breach of contract, and implied failure to act with reasonable care and skill. 

I am not playing a secret squirrel - I thought the details were not important, so gave a brief outline. The valus of the order is about £250, if that makes any difference. The hearing was struck out during the hearing because the company made an application for strike off on the basis that there was no case to answer, and during the hearing the judge decided that the case should be struck off because he agreed with the reasoning of the defendant. 

Well the details would have been important if you'd asked for assistance before filing your Particulars of Claim, but as the judge struck out your claim, that boat seems to have sailed.

If your claim basically just stated that you'd suffered a loss because the refund was late then that doesn't demonstrate any legal foundation for your claim and the judge was right to strike it out.

Normally your way forward after losing a case would be to appeal to a higher court, but for £250** I doubt it would be worth it and you'd be throwing good money after bad.

But it sounds from the additional detail that you've now given - details are always important - that you didn't lose the case but that the judge struck your claim out.

I'm no expert on court procedure so I'm not certain, but I wonder whether you may have an opportunity to refile your claim, but making sure that you have a legal basis for it this time?  I simply don't know if having the claim struck out kills it dead, or whether you can submit a suitably amended a claim.

I'm sure others will know.

You might have a claim for loss of bargain, but without knowing the details nobody can advise you.  You might still just be wasting your time and money...


** You say the value of the order was about £250, but if you recieved a refund why is the value of the order relevant?  Surely your loss that you need compensating for is whatever extra expense you had to incur because the stuff was never delivered in time.  that's the loss of bargain and that's what you'd be claiming for.  But you'd still have the problem to overcome that delivery times aren't guranteed.

Exactly.

Did the OP make clear to the supplier that time was of the essence?

Can any normal (i.e cheap / free) delivery service really be expected to be liable for an unlimited amount of consequential loss as a result of delay?

Were more reliable delivery options available at an extra cost?

As far as I know, Amazon never replace lost or faulty items, only refund the cost (which they did eventually). The buyer can then reorder from them of whoever they please.

Could the OP have mitigated their (claimed) losses had they acted sooner? Presumably if this item was essential and needed by a particular day buying elsewhere wasn't dependent of having received the Amazon refund?

etc, etc

Autumn2024

Alderbank said:

The OP has not revealed the actual breach which was claimed. This matters.

If the claim was breach of s12 of the Consumer Rights Act, which is likely, then a further term of CRA (s19) says 'the consumer has the right to recover from the trader the amount of any costs incurred by the consumer as a result of the breach, up to the amount of the price paid or the value of other consideration given for the goods.'

This seems to be what the judge directed and the reason why he did so, so no grounds for appeal if that was the only claim.

Helpfully, s19 goes on to say 'This Chapter does not prevent the consumer seeking other remedies...

Those other remedies include claiming damages...'

The OP has not revealed whether they sought any other remedies apart from the CRA.

Thank you, @Alderbank

Autumn2024

@Aylesbury_Duck, thank you! posting on this thread is doing wonders for me in terms of getting it out of my system!

Autumn2024

Okell, thank you so much, valuable advice! 

lincroft1710

Let me tell you something about "apologies".


I worked for a central government department and if we made a mistake which nearly always meant a member of the public would either be paying more money or paying less money we would write to inform them of this. The last line of the letter was always 

"I would apologise for the error and any inconvenience caused"

To us the mistake was just one of those things, no--one's perfect, didn't give it a second thought, on to the next case.


With regard to you and your family boycotting Amazon, this will have about the same effect as the damage done to a brick wall when a fly hits it. But I can understand you not wishing to do business with them in the future

eskbanker

lincroft1710 said:

The last line of the letter was always 

"I would apologise for the error and any inconvenience caused"

The inclusion of the word 'would' in that would wind me up if I was receiving one of those - the sentence works fine without it and putting it in introduces an connotation of qualification, e.g. "I would apologise if I thought we'd done anything wrong".

lincroft1710

eskbanker said:

lincroft1710 said:

The last line of the letter was always 

"I would apologise for the error and any inconvenience caused"

The inclusion of the word 'would' in that would wind me up if I was receiving one of those - the sentence works fine without it and putting it in introduces an connotation of qualification, e.g. "I would apologise if I thought we'd done anything wrong".

Yes, I wondered about that at the time, but it was a phrase used by a senior colleague and I just copied it