DOES THE PRODUCT YOU SOLD HAVE A WARRANTY?

If you sold a tangible product, and no-one said anything about any warranty, you may think that what you sold is not under any sort of warranty.  You would be incorrect (or I would not have anything to write about).  Under the Uniform Commercial Code, which every state save Louisiana has adopted in some form, every product you sell carries an implied warranty. That implied warranty can be done away with, if you specifically say so or if you grant a limited warranty instead.  But figuring out how to do so is more complicated than it should be.

All this means that the kind of warranty that applies to a product will depend on the circumstances.  For example, disclosing that something is sold “as is” may indicate that there is no warranty, but if it is part of a written sales agreement, it must appear conspicuously.  Limitations of warranties are subject to the same requirement.  It may not be surprising that what is “conspicuous enough” has been the object of many a lawsuit and seemingly infinite appeals.

Conversely, not every limitation needs to be in writing.  So the extent of the warranty may depend on an endless list of factors, such as what was said at the time of the sale, whether the buyer and seller have done business before and if so, what their history is, whether the buyer inspected the product before sale, and so on and so forth.

Selling is hard enough in this economy without worrying about whether there are terms to your sale you did not even know about.  This is why working under a sales agreement drafted by a competent attorney is well worth it.  You might otherwise find yourself at risk of one day defending a claim for breach of warranty, and with that comes the danger of extended litigation and appeals, all to decide just what warranty came with your product by operation of law.