1. CASE STUDIES
1.Tina was getting married. For her hen night, she ordered twenty matching t-shirts
for her friends, each with her picture on the front and their own names on the back.
She had left it quite late and when the T-shirts arrived, the day before the hen
party, the t-shirt company had printed photographs of her ex-boyfriend on the front
instead. Tina had mistakenly sent them the wrong jpeg file on her computer. There
was no time to reprint the shirts, and Tina’s hens went out for the evening without
their t-shirts.
JUDGMENT: The judge asked the printer to explain the ordering process on the website
and whether Tina would have had the opportunity to view the image she wanted on her t-
shirts before placing the order. The printers explained that they had recently updated
their web ordering system to ensure that customers could view the layout of their t-shirts
before they paid for them. They denied that it had anything to do with Tina’s claim. The
judge stated that this seemed sensible to avoid mistakes being made in the future, but
still found that Tina should not be compensated for her own error. The judge dismissed
Tina’s claim, finding that she could not rely on the Distance Selling Regulations, but stated
that he was not without sympathy for her predicament.
2. Stella bought a kitchen from Ikea and found a builder who advertised in her local
newspaper to install it for her. They agreed a price beforehand and the builder said
installation would take him three days. Stella was at work for those days, and left
her builder in the property without supervision. She paid him half of the cost of the
work up front and agreed to pay the rest on completion.
JUDGMENT: The judge found in Stella’s favour, and ordered the builder to pay Stella for
the extra expense she had incurred as a result of his negligence. However the judge also
found that Stella was not entitled to claim the 50% of the cost of installation because
some of the work had been carried out to a satisfactory standard. When the builder failed
to settle the county court judgment within 30 days, Stella obtained a warrant of execution
from the court and a bailiff seized goods from his property that were then auctioned off.
She recouped seventy percent of her losses.

2. 3.Sarah was late for work one morning. She was hurrying along the pavement, not
really looking where she was going because she was trying to send a text on her
phone. Carl, a workman, was doing some repairs to a shop frontage and was in the
process of securing cables to the pavement in accordance with health and safety
regulations.Sarah tripped over the cables and fell to the ground. She badly bruised
her knee, ripped her trousers and grazed her hand as she fell. She was shaken by
the accident but immediately started shouting at Carl that he should have been more
careful.
JUDGE’S DECISION: The judge listened to all the evidence and decided that he was not
convinced that the bollards were sufficiently prominent for Sarah to have seen them.
However, he also found that Sarah had contributed to the accident by not paying proper
attention. He decided to award Sarah £400, which was half the amount he would have
awarded her if she had not contributed to the accident. Each party was made to pay their
own costs.
4.Edward found a table advertised for sale on eBay and decided he wanted two of
them for his living room. He emailed the seller who said that he would be able to sell
him two matching wooden tables.
Edward enquired about the cost of delivery and the seller, who was also in the UK,
stated that he would be able to arrange to have them delivered by courier. The price
for packaging and delivery was reasonable so Edward paid the seller by Paypal. The
transaction was completed via a number of emails, rather than through eBay, which
was something that Edward was later to regret.
JUDGEMENT: At the hearing, the judge heard evidence from Edward, the seller and a
representative of the courier’s company. Although the seller argued that the courier was
to blame, Edward argued that the seller was to blame for not adequately packing the
furniture prior to passing it on to the courier.
After considering each party’s submissions the judge found in favour of Edward who was
awarded the cost of the tables, and was reimbursed the cost of bringing the claim to
court. As the judge found that the courier had not been to blame, the seller was made to
pay the courier’s costs as well, as it had been his idea to join the courier to the
proceedings.