Defective Products Your Leading Source For Legal Information. Defective Products You are protected when you buy shoddy products. While there is no law which requires a company to provide a written warranty on its goods, federal and state laws extend special protection to consumers who purchase goods which prove to be defective.
All goods sold to consumers carry what is known as an implied warranty of merchantability.
In plain English, this means that if you buy a product for a particular purpose, it must be able to do what it was intended to do. For example, if you buy a coffee maker, the product should be able to make coffee. If it won't, you are entitled to return it to the merchant who sold it to you and exchange it for one that works as promised. And while no law requires a manufacturer to provide a written warranty, most manufacturers do, chiefly as a way to build consumer confidence in the quality of the goods that they sell. The precise nature and duration of the warranty must be stated at the top of the warranty document.