New Jersey has one of the toughest set of laws to protect consumers from deceptive warranties and warranty denials. There are many types of breach of warranty claims which we pursue on behalf of our clients. Typical warranty issues involve home purchases, cars, boats and consumer products of all types. Consumers of “services” are equally covered under both the New Jersey warranty laws, as well as many others under the Uniform Commercial Code.
A warranty is a promise that a manufacturer, seller or contractor will repair defects in a product or replace it and/or compensate the user for any damages caused by the product. A warranty can be express (usually in writing) or it can be implied by law. If there is a defect which the seller or contractor fails to replace or repair as it promised to do, it has breached its warranty. New Jersey law provides many remedies for breach of a warranty.
New Jersey’s Truth-in-Consumer Contract, Warranty and Notice Act (“TCCWNA”) is one of the most unique warranty statutes in the United States, and prohibits companies from attempting to disclaim in written warranties that which New Jersey believes in unfair or unconscionable. In fact, many consumers believe tat they are out-of-luck because of a clause in a cleverly written contract or warranty, however, often we find that such clause violates the TCCWNA.
The Federal Mangason Moss Warranty Act protects consumers who lease or purchase products for personal use. If they do not work as promised under a written contract or service agreement and cannot be fixed within a reasonable time, the Mangason Moss Warranty Act provides the consumer a remedy.
New Jersey law recognizes express and implied warranties. An express warranty is explicitly created in a written agreement or stated verbally. For instance, a consumer contract may say that the consumer is given a certain warranty. Many contracts do this; for instance a contract to buy a car will normally specify that the car will work without defect for, say, 3 years or 36,000 miles. No magic words are necessary to create an express warranty. If the words indicate the seller’s intent to make a promise about a product, then it is a warranty.
An implied warranty is imposed by the law to protect consumers when products do not work the way they are supposed to, even if there is no express warranty. New Jersey’s Uniform Commercial Code provides several implied warranties. The first is the implied warranty of merchantability. This implied warranty requires that a product be reasonably fit for the purpose for which it is offered for sale. The product must provide what a normal, reasonable consumer would expect it to do. So, for example, a chain saw must be able to cut wood.
An implied warranty of fitness for a particular purpose is similar, but the focus is on the consumer, not the merchant. Under this warranty, New Jersey Law requires that the product sold must be fit for the buyer’s purpose, if the seller knew or reasonably should have known what the buyer’s purpose was. The buyer must also have relied on the seller’s expertise.
A warranty regarding the quality of goods or services, or to repair or relace them if they are defective, is also a contract under New Jersey law, so breaching the warranty will also be a Breach of Contract. Thus, for example, if a contractor built a deck, and the deck collapsed several months later because of defective workmanship, and the contractor failed to repair or replace the deck, the contractor would have breached its contract with the homeowner by failing to repair or replace the deck. New Jersey breach of contract law gives the consumer a means to recover her losses.
Warranties which are deceptive may also violate New Jersey’s Truth-in-Consumer Contract, Warranty and Notice Act, the federal Deceptive Trade Practices Act, and New Jersey’s Consumer Fraud Act.