Right to a refund on accessories when the main purchase is found to be not as advertised

Question

I recently bought an amplifier for my hifi system from a local retailer in the UK. The amplifier was found to be not as specified and after some quibbling the store manager agreed a refund. However, he has flatly refused a refund on additional accessories (ancillary cables and such) even though it was made known they were specifically for the amplifier at the time of purchase. Have I the right to my money back on these items also?

Answer 1

I hope someone can expound whether the Sale of Goods Act 1979 and/or Consumer Rights Act 2015 can assist OP. But nobody has answered OP.

OP, here is what I would do.

Escalate over this manager, if you can. Cite case law at the highest ranking employee of this retailer, as follows.

The basic rule, stated in Hadley v Baxendale (1854), is that a contracting party is liable for losses either:

(a) arising naturally, i.e. according to the usual course of things; or
(b) such as may reasonably be supposed to have been in the contemplation of both parties, at the time they made the contract, as the probable result of the breach of it.

This was transmuted to the composite test of ‘reasonably foreseeable as liable to result’ in Victoria Laundry (Windsor) Ltd v Newman Industries Ltd (1949) which itself has two subdivisions corresponding to the two limbs of the rule in Hadley v Baxendale: one dealing with losses that anyone, ‘as a reasonable person’, could foresee and the second dealing with losses that are foreseeable given the special knowledge of the defendant.

I quoted this from Damian Taylor, Contract Law Directions (8 edn, 2021, OUP), p 301. This introductory book is written for students, so you can try to read it.

Now apply the law to your facts. How?

First, apply Limb #1 of Hadley v Baxendale. Your "additional accessories (ancillary cables and such)" arise naturally. It is completely natural and usual to buy accessories for an amplifier, because an amplifier shall not work without accessories!

Then apply Limb #2 of Hadley v Baxendale. Stress that you made known (to whom though???) that you bought "additional accessories (ancillary cables and such)" "specifically for the amplifier at the time of purchase." Therefore, both parties contemplated these accessories at the time that you bought the amplifier. Therefore, your losses for these accessories resulted from the store's breach of contract of the amplifier.

Let us know if this argument works!