Product liability

Claims in contract

If a claimant has purchased a product from a defendant which is found to be ‘unfit for purpose’ or of ‘unsatisfactory quality’ the claimant will have a remedy as against the defendant irrespective of whether there was any fault on the defendant’s part. While this makes the claimant’s position stronger than in common law negligence this principle only applies where the claimant was a party to the original contract. There are only limited remedies available to third parties who were not the purchaser but were the end-user, for example where they received the unfit product by way of a gift.

Claims can be pursued where there has been a breach of an express or implied term of the contract. Safety and suitability of the product are often not explicitly considered, so the law implies terms into the contract in order to protect the consumer. The most significant statute in this context is the Sale of Goods Act 1979 (SGA 1979). For business to consumer contracts this has mainly been replaced by the Consumer Rights Act 2015 from 1 October 2015 but some provisions of