Consumer - 1930- 1959

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This page lists 7 cases, and was prepared on 28 October 2012.

Donoghue (or McAlister) -v- Stevenson [1932] AC 562; [1932] SC (HL) 31; [1932] ScLT 317; [1932] All ER Rep 1; (1931) 101 LJPC 119; (1931) 147 LT 281; [1931] UKHL 3
26 May 1931 HL Lords Atkin, Thankerton MacMillan, Buckmaster Tomlin	Negligence, Consumer, Scotland	Casemap 1 Cites 1 Citers
	The appellant drank from a bottle of ginger beer manufactured by the defendant. She suffered injury when she found a half decomposed snail in the liquid. The glass was opaque and the snail could not be seen. The drink had been bought for her by a friend, so she was unable to rely upon any contract. Held: The English and the Scots law on the subject are identical. The pursuer was entitled to recover damages for negligence. The manufacturer intended that the contents be consumed without the opportunity first to examine them, and unless reasonable care was taken in the preparation a consumer may suffer injury. The cases of George v. Skivington and `the dicta in Heaven v. Pender "should be buried so securely that their perturbed spirits shall no longer vex the law." (Majority) The nature of an article "may very well call for different degrees of care". “the person dealing with [an inherently dangerous article] may well contemplate persons as being within the sphere of his duty to take care who would not be sufficiently proximate with less dangerous goods; so that not only the degree of care but the range of persons to whom the duty is owed may be extended.” Lord Atkin said: "the lawyer's question, Who is my neighbour? receives a restricted reply. You must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which you can reasonably foresee would be likely to injure your neighbour. Who, then, in law is my neighbour? The answer seems to be - persons who are so closely and directly affected by my act that I ought reasonably to have them in contemplation as being so affected when I am directing my mind to the acts or omissions which are called in question."
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Sherwood -v- Cox [1945] 1 KB 549
1945	Consumer, Crime	Casemap 1 Citers
	Food and Drugs Act 1938

Holmes -v- Ashford [1950] 2 All ER 76
1950 CA Tucker LJ	Consumer, Negligence	Casemap 1 Citers
	A hairdresser treated the plaintiff's hair with a dye, and as a result the plaintiff contracted dermatitis. The dye came to the hairdresser in labelled bottles together with instructions. Both the labels and the brochure warned that the dye might be dangerous to certain skins, and recommended a test before it was used. The hairdresser had read the labels and the brochure and was aware of the danger, but he made no test and did not warn the plaintiff. The plaintiff claimed damages against the hairdresser and the manufacturers, and was awarded judgment against both. The manufacturers appealed. Held: A manufacturer who puts a dangerous article on the market must take reasonable steps to prevent any person coming into contact with it from being injured, but it was not necessary in every case that precautions should be taken to ensure that the ultimate recipient of the article was warned of the danger; the manufacturers had given the hairdresser a warning which was sufficient to intimate to him the potential danger of the dye, and it was not necessary that they should have warned the plaintiff; and, therefore, they had discharged the duty which was on them. Tucker LJ: "A number of authorities have been cited to us by counsel for the plaintiff in support of the proposition that a manufacturer who puts a dangerous article on the market must take reasonable precautions to ensure that the ultimate recipient is warned of the danger. I think that that is not the correct way of stating the proposition. Every person who puts on the market a dangerous article (and the learned judge has found this to be a dangerous article) must take reasonable steps in all the circumstances. This is not an article the nature of which can be ascertained by intermediate examination, and, therefore, it is an article which requires some warning. The question in this case is: Was the warning attached to this bottle a sufficient and adequate warning to be given in cases where the material is supplied to hairdressers for use on their customers? We must presume that the material is supplied to reasonable people, and the first defendant has said that he read the warning, appreciated what it meant, and ignored it. I find it, therefore, impossible to hold that the warning which was, in fact, given in the present case was insufficient."

Kwei Tek Chao -v- British Traders and Shippers [1954] 2 QB 459
1954 Devlin J	Contract, Consumer
	In testing whether a buyer of goods has acted inconsistently with the rights of the seller so as to lose the right of rejection where as in this case, property in the goods has passed to the buyer, the ownership of the seller with which the buyer must not act inconsistently is the reversionary interest of the seller which remains in him arising from the contingency that the buyer may reject the goods.

Eastern Distributors Limited v Goldring (Murphy, Third Party) [1957] 2 QB 600
1957 CA	Contract, Consumer	Casemap 1 Citers
	The court considered the meaning of the phrase: "shall not be entitled to enforce" in the section. Held. "How is the present case affected by the fact that the hire-purchase agreement is unenforceable? If the Act said that it was void, then of course the character of Murphy's possession could not be altered by it. But the Act says merely that it is to be unenforceable. This must mean that it is effective to alter the rights of the parties but that the altered rights cannot be enforced."
	Hire-Purchase Act 1938 2(2)

Feldman -v- Always Travel Unreported, October 15 1957
15 Oct 1957 Alan Pugh Judge	Damages, Contract, Consumer
	The plaintiff complained that the holiday he had booked had been altered by the operator in several ways which inconvenienced and distressed him. Held: The correct measure of damages was the difference between the amount he paid and the value of what had in fact been furnished, allowing for his feelings of annoyance and frustration.

Chappell & Co Ltd -v- Nestle Co Ltd [1959] UKHL 1; [1960] AC 87
18 Jun 1959 HL Viscount Simonds, Lord Reid, Lord Tucker, Lord Keith of Avonholm, Lord Somervell of Harrow	Intellectual Property, Consumer
	The defendants sought to rely on section 8 in defence to a claim for copyright infringement. They had manufactured and sold recordings of a work whose copyright was owned by the plaintiffs.They had given notice but had been told that the distribution as a sales promotion for chocolate was not retail sale within the section. Held. It was a retail sale: "It is a sale to a consuming member of the public, and I know of no other factor which distinguishes a retail sale from other sales. " The issue as whether the price was an 'ordinary retal selling price' and whether it is contended that . . the sale " bears no resemblance at all to the transaction to which . . the section is pointing ", or that the three wrappers form part of the selling price and are incapable of valuation. Nor is there any need to take what, with respect, I think is a somewhat artificial view of a simple transaction. What can be easier than for a manufacturer to limit his sales to those members of the public who fufil the qualification of being this or doing that? It may be assumed that the manufacturer's motive is his own advantage. It is possible that he achieves his object. But that does not mean that the sale is not a retail sale to which the section applies or that the ordinary retail selling price is not the price at which the record is ordinarily sold, in this case 1s. 6d."
	Copyright Act 1956 8
	Link[s] omitted