Breakages

[cassa333]

Hi,

Is it enforceable when a shop has notices up that say you have to pay for breakages?

Thanks

[trt]

What kind of shop?

[joggerjayne]

Thinks, thinks ...

A shop is private property.

The items on display belong to the owner.

If a customer breaks something belonging to the owner ...

Look at it this way ... if someone crashes into your car and damages it, are they expected to pay for the damage?

Yes.

So, if a customer breaks something belonging to the shop owner, they must pay for it.

The notices are just warnings.

[douglas9401]

I think if the stuff's fragile then the owners should have a duty of care to present it in such a way that it can't be broken or worse, injure someone when a breakage occurs.
Seems to be mostly shops selling overpriced but worthless tat that have these miserable little signs up.

[ummmm]

It would depend I think.

I was in a supermarket during the xmas period, I picked a jar from one of the displays and the display started toppling down. I tried my hardest to stop it but bottles were falling everywhere. About 30 of them smashed...

I reckon the manager done a quick rewind of the CCTV and came really quickly and apologised. It wasn't my fault his staff were crap at stacking glass bottles!!

All I came out with is 'your shop have just made me look a complete twonk'

No, I didn't have to pay. It was their fault.

So...it depends...

[Calibax]

I think you need to compensate the shop for the breakage but put them in the position they were before. I.e. you should only be required to pay the wholesale price not the retail price. If you pay the retail price you would be adding to their profit and thus making the breakage beneficial to them.

[Ellipsis]

Tesco used to have a policy that they'd replace anything you broke, even if it was while putting it into your car after you'd paid for it. Not sure that they still do ...

When it comes to shops with these signs, I don't shop in them.

[237SJ]

I would image it is enforceable and probably driven by the fact that the shop is saving money by not taking out insurance for customer breakages.

[woofgang]

i think it depends on whether the customer is at fault eg they are walking arounf a china shop with a bsckpack on or allowing a child to run rampant, or whether its the shops fault, like the badly stacked jars of jam.

[hc4361]

No, it is not enforceable unless you deliberately break the goods (criminal damage) or are negligent, which is very difficult and expensive for the shop to prove in court.

You could just as easily claim the shop owner was negligent in not allowing enough space between the shelves for customers to browse, or by stacking goods carelessly.

[Buenchico]

As has been indicated above (irrespective of whether there are any such notices) the basic test in law is one of 'negligence'. If you break something in a shop through sheer carelessness the proprietor has the right to demand payment (and to pursue that demand through civil action if necessary).

Whether warning signs add anything to the standard legal position would depend upon the circumstances. As an analogy, a car park operator (such as a supermarket) can display signs stating that anyone parking there for over a certain period of time must pay a charge for doing so. By parking there, a driver has entered into a legally binding contract which is just as enforceable as a multi-page written contract signed in a solicitor's office.

Similarly, anyone entering a shop where "Break it and pay for it" signs are displayed could be held to have entered into a legally-binding contract by simply walking into the shop. However, if the shop owner left goods precariously stacked, a court might rule that such a contract was invalidated through the provisions of the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1997. (To use a further analogy, launderettes should not display signs stating "All washing carried out at owner's risk" because, for example, a faulty machine might give a hot wash when a cool one was selected and the launderette owner would still be liable to pay compensation to the customer if clothing became damaged).

[TheWinner]

Our return message would be:


Put it all in the bin,
'cause we ain't coming in!

[hc4361]

For the sign to enforceable in court surely it would have to be clearly displayed on the door before you entered the shop, buenchico? In your car park analogy the sign would have to be clear to the driver at the time of parking so he could choose to park or not. No good having the sign on the back of the shop door for the driver to read on his way out.

A shopkeeper makes an 'invitation to treat' by allowing a potential customer in to the shop. There is no contract between the shopkeeper and customer until the customer offers payment and the shopkeeper accepts the money.

The shopkeeper can put his rules on the door - no eating/drinking/spitting on these premises; no hoods/helmets/face coverings; no unaccompanied children - but that doesn't mean people are breaking the law if they ignore them.

If I were to break something in a shop accidentally I would give the shopkeeper my details and tell him to pursue it through the court. Unless he could prove that I was negligent he would have no chance.
Of course I would take photos of the shop layout and displays as part of my defence.

[hc4361]

A similar question from another angle. A shop does not give away carrier bags and charges for them. I buy a bottle of wine and a carrier bag and the shopkeeper puts the bottle in the bag. I pay and make my way to the door when the bag breaks, causing the bottle to smash on the floor.

Can I expect the shopkeeper to replace or refund as the bag is certainly not fit for purpose?

[Buenchico]

>>>For the sign to enforceable in court surely it would have to be clearly displayed on the door before you entered the shop, buenchico?

Agreed (or, of course, at the entrance to a specific section of a department store, such as the china department).

As I stated above, the basic test is one of 'negligence'. It would be for a court to decide whether warning notices had any additional legal standing (as in my car park analogy) or should not have been displayed at all (as in my launderette analogy).

Our system of 'case law' is, in many ways, a wonderful one (because it allows our courts to apply common sense to what Parliament has written into law - or which simply exists through 'common law' anyway). However it makes it extremely difficult (even for the most experienced barrister, yet alone us novices on here) to state clearly how the law would regard a particular situation if there's no existing case law to call upon.

[Buenchico]

>>>Can I expect the shopkeeper to replace or refund as the bag is certainly not fit for purpose?

See my disclaimer, above, about the difficulty of deciding what the law might say if there's no case law to call upon. However, if the retailer was providing extremely flimsy carrier bags (even if they were provided free of charge), it's probably likely that a court would rule that the breakage came about through his negligence, so he should compensate the purchaser. It's less clear as to how a court might rule if he was providing exceptionally strong carrier bags (which would normally hold several bottles of wine) and had no reason to be aware that just one of them was faulty.

Another problem with case law is that matters involving losses of only a few pounds rarely go to court, so that there are no relevant decisions to provide guidance. Further, even if a customer (who has just seen his bottle of plonk smashed when his carrier bag broke) is able to quote a dozen legal precedents to show that the retailer should compensate him, he might still be hesitant to launch a potentially expensive legal action against the retailer if he refuses to pay up.

[cassa333]

Thank you everyone.

I was in one of those shops that sell all manner of things in rows and rows. They had lead crystal ornaments and I picked one up that toppled over and broke.

There were bits of paper with do not touch and ask an assistant if you want to look at them but tbh I didn't notice them (I should have they were there).

I did pay for it (£35) but do think that they should have them displayed behind the counter if they don't want people ouching them etc.

[Peter Pedant]

£35 quid - ouch cassa !

sorry to hear of that- I thought it might be a grudging 2/6