Law Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for legal professionals, students, and others with experience or interest in law. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
When products are sold in England and Wales there there is an implied contract term that the goods supplied under the contract are of satisfactory quality. (Sale of Goods Act, Section 14)
Does this mean that consumers are entitled to a refund if a book is badly written?
Of course in many cases it would be hard for a court to judge writing quality objectively, and I suppose the policy aims of allowing free expression and consumer protection would be in conflict.
The Act further clarifies that
For the purposes of this Act, goods are of satisfactory quality if they meet the standard that a reasonable person would regard as satisfactory, taking account of any description of the goods, the price (if relevant) and all the other relevant circumstances.
When you buy the book, you're doing so because you have an expectation the story will be entertaining, or having it available is somehow useful to you.
Unless you have been lied to, by the bookseller, the fact that your expectation does not match what happened is not the problem of the seller of the book. Moreover, especially when you physically purchase the book from a brick-and-mortar shop yourself, unless the book has never been opened or read by anybody, you have had ample opportunity to check whether the book is of suitable quality for your purpose, as a reasonable person would do.
As a consumer you are protected from books being printed on tissue and bound with spider webs (durable), with invisible ink (fit for purpose), covered with razor blades (safe), and generally not tatty (suitable appearance and finish; freedom from minor defect).
As such, there is no conflict between consumer protection and free expression. You are assured a book you can read for a long time, and should you dislike the story, you're also free to burn it (subject to pollution and hazard laws).
Does this mean that consumers are entitled to a refund if a book is badly written?
The questioner refers to "consumers". Therefore user4657's answer, and Teresa Pelka's answer, are both wrong for failing to cite and apply the Consumer Rights Act 2015.
I quote from Janet O'Sullivan, O'Sullivan & Hilliard's Law of Contract (2020 9 ed), p 207. The 2022 10 ed shall be published in July 2022.
8.27 According to s 61 of the CRA, a ‘consumer contract’ is defined in s 61(1) as a ‘contract between a trader and a consumer’. In turn, ‘trader’ and ‘consumer’ are defined in s 2 of the CRA as follows:
(2) ‘Trader’ means a person acting for purposes relating to that person’s trade, business, craft or profession, whether acting personally or through another person acting in the trader’s name or on the trader’s behalf.
(3) ‘Consumer’ means an individual acting for purposes that are wholly or mainly outside that individual’s trade, business, craft or profession.
(4) A trader claiming that an individual was not acting for purposes wholly or mainly outside the individual’s trade, business, craft or profession must prove it.
Consumers ought to start with the CRA 2015, which protects Consumers way more than the Sale of Goods Act 1979.
