Consumer Law

In a sense there is no such creature as "consumer law". English law has never developed a fully coherent body of law designed to protect the consumer. The consumer and his advisers have instead been obliged to utilize a hotchpotch of common law concepts and doctrines designed primarily for other purposes. Even the recent statutory consumer protection developments have been piecemeal, and do not amount to a comprehensive code. The upshot of this characteristically empirical approach of English law is that consumer law is a hybrid creation. The student accordingly needs to study a number of disparate categories of law, but at the same time needs to be constantly aware of their interrelationships from the consumer viewpoint. This book draws attention to the interrelationships in its discussion of the law. Part one of the text considers the consumer's rights and remedies under private (or civil) law. The text deals not only with the law of sale of goods as it relates to consumers, but also with analogous contracts and with contracts involving the supply of a service. After a review of product liability, attention is directed at the consumer credit dimension. For various reasons indicated in the text, private law remedies do not by themselves afford adequate consumer protection. Part two of this book therefore deals with intervention in the consumer interest by administrative remedies, backed by criminal law sanctions. It may well be that administrative remedies and criminal law sanctions now play a more significant role in consumer protection as a whole than does private law. Nevertheless, the individual consumer with a particularized complaint lives, so to speak, in a mixed legal economy; private law is not obsolete and the consumer's adviser must master its details.

Table of Contents:
Part 1 Private law remedies: classification of consumer contracts; ownership and risk; sale by non-owner; pre-contractual terms; implied terms; legal control of exemption clauses; performance of consumer contracts for the sale of goods; remedies; product liability; consumer credit - introductory; seeking credit business; formation of credit or hire agreements; consumer credit - liability for defective goods and services; termination of credit agreement by the debtor; consumer credit - remedies. Part 2 Administrative remedies and criminal law sanctions: functions of the Director under the Act; introductory note on licensing; licensing functions of Director; fair trading; consumer safety; trade descriptions; food; compensation orders; the settlement of consumer disputes. Appendix: examination technique.