Week 9 - Consumer Products: Express Warranty and Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act

UCC allows for warranty claims

From the Uniform Sales Act to the UCC In the United States, the Uniform Sales Act of 1906 first governed sales of goods, and starting in 1954 states replaced it with Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code, which governs most sales warranties today. Under the UCC, a buyer can recover for an injury when a product doesn't live up to the seller's promises, even without proving that the product was defective.

How Express Warranties Arise A seller breaks an express warranty when the goods don't match what the seller promised about how they are made or how they will perform. These promises usually come from three places: what the seller says before or at the sale, materials packaged with the product, and advertising aimed at the public.

The Text of UCC §2-313 Under this section, a seller's factual statement, promise, description, sample, or model creates a warranty if it becomes part of the reason for the deal. A seller doesn't need to use words like "guarantee" for a warranty to exist, but statements of opinion or general praise don't count.

Baxter v. Ford Motor Co. Background

The Facts In 1930, the plaintiff bought a Ford sedan from a dealer, St. John Motors, which had bought the car from Ford Motor Company. He claimed that both companies told him the windshield was made of glass that would not break or shatter.

Baxter — The Injury and the Key Legal Question A pebble from a passing car hit the windshield and sent glass into the plaintiff's eye, costing him that eye, and the trial court ruled for both defendants without letting the jury decide. On appeal, the main question was whether the trial court wrongly refused to let him use Ford's sales brochures, which described the glass, as evidence.

Ford's Advertising Claims Ford's brochure said that its "Triplex shatter-proof glass windshield" would "not fly or shatter under the hardest impact". It promoted the glass as an important safety feature and something every car buyer should look for, especially when traveling with women and children.

Legal Reasoning

Why the Manufacturer Can Be Liable Ford argued it couldn't be liable because it had no direct contract with the buyer (a requirement known as "privity"), but the court disagreed, noting that an ordinary buyer couldn't check the glass for himself. Because modern advertising creates much of the demand for products, the court said it would be unfair to let manufacturers make false claims to drive sales and then avoid liability for lack of a direct contract, and it sent the case back for a new trial.

The Retrial and Excluded Expert Testimony At the new trial, Ford tried to offer expert testimony that no carmaker made a better windshield at the time, but the judge excluded it and the appeals court agreed. The text asks readers to think about why, which suggests that what mattered was Ford's specific promise, not whether its glass was as good as its competitors'.

Separating Puffery from Warranty

Warranty Versus "Puffery" Courts struggle to separate real warranties from "puffery" (vague sales praise), and one scholar has called the area "doctrinal chaos". For example, courts have treated statements that a chemical smell was "nothing to worry about," that a device was "optimal," or that a product was "superior" as opinion rather than enforceable promises.

Limits of Warranty Language In Coba, the court considered whether Ford's warranty covering defects in "materials or workmanship" also covered a fuel tank coating that allegedly failed because of its design. The court held that the warranty covered only manufacturing mistakes, not design problems affecting an entire product line.