QUESTION: If a product doesn’t perform as anticipated, is it covered by any type of warranty?
ANSWER: The implied warranty of merchantability is a merchant’s basic promise that the goods sold will do what they are supposed to do and that there is nothing significantly wrong with them. In other words, it is an implied promise that the goods are fit to be sold.
The law says that merchants make this promise automatically every time they sell a product they are in business to sell. For example, if you, as an appliance retailer, sell an oven, you are promising that the oven is in proper condition for sale because it will do what ovens are supposed to do – bake food at controlled temperatures selected by the buyer. If the oven doesn’t heat, or if it heats without proper temperature control, then the oven isn’t fit for sale as an oven, and the seller has breached the implied warranty of merchantability. In such a case, the law requires the seller to provide a remedy so that the buyer gets a working oven.