Dear Jake and Carly

I have been asked to advise you both as the owners of Commercial Law Books in connection with your dispute with LawBooks4Me. In my view, you have a strong case for arguing that you are legally entitled to a refund for, or a replacement of, the defective Commercial Law Handbooks, for the reasons set out below.

Quality of goods purchased

Legislation covering the sale and supply of goods dictates that when one party purchases physical goods from another, there is an implied term that those goods must be of satisfactory quality in the view of a “reasonable person”, taking into account their description and price. When determining whether the quality is “satisfactory”, some of the key considerations are their fitness for purpose, appearance, safety, and durability.

In the circumstances you have described and based on the information you have provided, it seems apparent that the severely damaged books would not meet the “satisfactory quality” benchmark in the eyes of a reasonable person. Given that the ink smudges render portions of the books illegible, whilst the detached pages mean that readers may lack access to some of the content, it appears that the books are not fit for the purpose for which they are commonly used (i.e. the purpose of accessing the content contained within the pages of those books).

Acceptance of goods delivered

However, even where the relevant goods have not met the standard imposed by law (as set out above), if the buyer has accepted the goods, they will be unable to later claim a refund or replacement. In this context, acceptance takes place when the buyer either: (a) explicitly indicates acceptance to the seller; or (b) acts in a way that suggests the goods have been accepted.

Although taking delivery of the books and storing them could arguably be seen as an act that demonstrates acceptance, legislation states that you will not be deemed to have accepted those goods until you have had a reasonable opportunity to examine them. The opportunity to examine lapses after a “reasonable time”, however this concept has not been specifically defined in the relevant legislation.

Given that you often order new stock every 4-6 months, you could argue that a reasonable time for the inspection of all the books had not passed. It would conceivably have been in the contemplation of LawBooks4Me that certain stock would have remained unsold by this point in time, and it would arguably have been unreasonable for LawBooks4Me to expect you to individually check 500 books at the time of delivery, especially given that the books in the two boxes that you did check were in a sellable condition.

Right to reject a portion of the goods delivered 

Even if a court found that you had examined and accepted the two boxes that you checked at the time of delivery, the law affords you a specific right to partially reject some of the order (i.e. the damaged books in the box you later opened). Provided that acceptance of the boxes containing the severely damaged goods isn’t deemed to have taken place already (e.g. because a reasonable period for inspection has lapsed), you will have the right to reject only the damaged goods.

Conclusion

To summarise, a portion of the goods delivered are not of satisfactory quality and you did not explicitly indicate acceptance of the box containing the damaged goods. The dispute therefore comes down to whether you had already had a “reasonable time” to inspect the goods by 12 December 2022.

Given that you usually order goods every 4-6 months, LawBooks4Me would likely have understood that you would not be opening all the boxes delivered until a few months after delivery. On this basis, there is a good chance that a court would agree that you had not yet had a reasonable time to inspect all the goods, and that you are therefore still entitled to reject the damaged goods.

However, we may need to carry out further research to determine how the courts have interpreted “reasonable time” in similar contexts in order to provide a more precise assessment of the merits of your case. It is also worth noting that where the law surrounding a case is not entirely clear, there is always the risk that the outcome of litigation will not be what one would expect.

If you would like to discuss any of the above in more detail, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Yours sincerely

Your Lawyer

Advice on this case study

• Where applicable, I would recommend starting client letters of advice by summarising back the facts and instructions, and then highlighting your overall findings. This helps clients to ascertain that you have properly understood their instructions, and to quickly access the key information should they need it.
• I tried to use a strong and consistent structure when drafting the main body of this letter. I started by reading the relevant statutory provisions in order to ascertain which points I would need to raise. I then set out headings relating to each of these points, to make sure I didn’t miss anything out.
• In each main section, I then aimed to: (a) explain the relevant law, and then (b) apply that law to the facts. It can be easy to lose sight of the circumstances presented in a case study, so make a conscious effort to tie your points, including the relevance of the law that you discuss, to the facts presented. Clients want to know how the law impacts them and their particular circumstances.
• As this letter was intended for a client, I kept statutory references to a minimum and summarised the relevant provisions in layman’s terms. After all, client’s do not want to have to wade through statutory provisions and legal jargon – this is partly why they hire lawyers! 
• When working on a case study, always check who the intended recipient is. A letter for a client will likely need to be in plain English with few (or no) legal references, whereas a letter to an in-house lawyer at a client business, or a note to a legal supervisor, can often be more technical and set out the sources you have used. Of course, if you’re told to use statutory references, do so.