"It's in the store; you HAVE to sell it to me!"

Factual Questions
1

(This requires a lot of exposition, but trust me, there is a question at the end!)

I’m currently working at a Blockbuster store that’s in its seventh week of a going-out-of-business sale. Shortly before the sale started, we were given a Protected List of movies and games that we were required to immediately pull off the shelves and ship back to the distribution center or to other stores, because the studios don’t want us selling them at such a greatly-reduced rate.

The list contained practically every big-budget film that had been released on home video since November of '12, and practically every rental video game we had on the shelves at that time. With the exception of perhaps one or two video games that I may be unaware of, we shipped back our rental video games, and every video game sold in the store since the sale, was one that was already a previously-viewed product (PRP) before the sale began.

We’ve still been processing customer rental returns, however, though obviously the number of check-ins we’ve had has decreased dramatically over time. (If I had to guess, by now we’re averaging maybe one return per week.) By now any successful return is almost certainly a Combo Pass rental, because Blockbuster only allows 30 days to return an overdue movie before it becomes unreturnable.

So:

A couple days ago, a customer returned an XBox 360 copy of Assassin’s Creed III while I wasn’t there. Someone placed it on top of the video game cabinet, which is in easy sight of customers as they exit the store.

We’re frequently asked by customers if we have any video games left. This being Week 7, we only have one video game left: The Shoot for PlayStation Move, which no doubt will still be there when we close in a month.

After I told this to a customer, he turned to leave the store, and lo and behold his eyes locked onto that copy of Assassin’s Creed III. "Can you sell me that?" he asked.

Very professionally, I apologetically replied in the negative, saying that the game had just been returned, and because it was on a Protected List, we had to send it back to the distribution center. He nodded understandingly and left. And I put the game elsewhere, behind the opposite-side counter, a little harder for customers to see.

Problem solved, right? Well, no. This afternoon before I came in, a customer saw that game standing behind the counter (in an employees-only area of the store), grabbed it, and demanded that my boss TJ sell it to him.

TJ had to spend a good five minutes telling him why he couldn’t sell it to him. Angrily, the customer stormed out, leaving the game behind, thank goodness. (No word on whether the customer wanted it for the $2.99 [rental] price on the sticker).

Customer comes back in (or calls?) 10 minutes later, and says that common-law of the United States says that because the item was in the store, in view of a customer and not explicitly exempt from sale, Blockbuster had to sell him the game. "You’ve got no choice." Another long argument ensued, ending when TJ basically said, “Fine, go ahead and sue us.”

If I’d been there I like to think I’d have come up with a snappy remark about the customer committing criminal trespassing by going behind the counter in the first place. But anyway:

  1. Was the customer correct in saying that Blockbuster could not deny him the right to purchase the game, even though it wasn’t on the sales floor, because it was in view of a customer?

  2. Was the customer committing criminal trespassing by going behind the counter in the first place?

  3. If both answers are “yes”, wouldn’t the customer’s initial crime in #2 have nullified #1?

2

OK, listen up: I did not pull a tl;dr on this, though tempted, so now you owe it two of us to reply.

3

While there is certainly a valid legal concept in the United States known as “common law,” here is a rule of thumb you can use: When someone starts citing their rights under “common law” there is a 99% probability that they are a legally ignorant nutjob just making stuff up or repeating something that some other nutjob told them. (Law professors writing journal articles or legal briefs are not included in this rule.) I’m sorry, but I hear this nonsense about common law and about the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) being the supreme law of the land so much from tax protester nutjobs that it sends up instant flags.

In any case, it’s highly unlikely that whatever this so called right is would be a federal one (unless you are in Washington DC), but if there is any law concerning it (common or statutory), it would be a state law.

4

I am not a lawyer, so I won’t give a legal answer to any of your questions.

From a practical point of view, I would have said, “Yes, I’ll be happy to sell you this game. That will be $100, please.”

5

  1. IIRC, there is no such thing as “common law” that applies to the whole US. Even if there was, logically the customer is wrong anyway. Would you have to sell him your lunch if he spotted it in the break room? Your sister if she was an employee? No, So his assertation is bogus to begin with. The game was not an item for sale, therefore you don’t have to sell it to him. Hell, even if it was for sale, you don’t have to sell it to him.

  2. Probably.

6

You dont have to sell anything…to anyone

Do you have to sell them your shirt…the keyboard for your computer…

The easier answer for such folks is “sir that copy is damaged and non functional”

7

Look up invitation to treat, specifically the case Fisher v Bell.
Fisher v Bell - Wikipedia

8

Well, first of all, Blockbuster cannot deny anybody their rights to purchase anything.
Blockbuster can, however, refuse to sell anything that they wish to refuse to sell.

I would have pistol-whipped the idiot, and sent him out without any Assassin’s anything.

9

But his return visit most assuredly won’t be empty-handed. :smiley:

10

Here let me fix that for you
From a practical point of view, I would have said, “Yes, I’ll be happy to sell you this game. That will be $1000, please.”

So the store fixtures are on display. Can I buy the freezer case at my local Walmart?

11

An advertisement (pretty much ANY advertisement) is NOT an offer to sell; it is a solicitation for offer.

IOW: I put out a widget on what is clearly a sales counter with a sign reading “Widget $19.99”.
You pick it up, present it and your $19.99 to me at the cash register and say “I want to buy this”.
So far THERE IS NO CONTRACT to sell nor one to buy.
There was a solicitation of an offer: “Widget $19.99” means “I want you to offer me $19.99 for this widget”
There is an offer to purchase: your possession of the item and the presentation of the money.

At this point neither of you is under contract to do anything.

It is when I take the offered money that there has been an offer AND an acceptance - now you have a contract.

This is why the used car dealer can advertiser “2005 Honda Civic $500.00” and tell you there ain’t any such thing available to you, or the store doesn’t have to honor a misprinted price label - that steak is not going to be yours for $2.4999, no matter how much of a fool you make of yourself yelling “common law”. (In fact, the “ad = solicitation, NOT an offer” rule IS common law).

12

I suspect you were dealing with a Sovereign Citizen.

13

The basic legal principle here was you were dealing with an idiot.

What possible law would require a store to sell any item that was inside the store? If I went into a WalMart and told them I wanted to buy the cash register, would they have to sell it to me?

Obviously, a store is not obligated to sell something that it specifically is not putting up for sale - like a video game on a protected no-sale list.

14

What usedtobe said. Whether or not the item was nominally for sale has nothing to do with it.

15

I am not a lawyer and the law may vary in your state, etc., but a merchant may refuse service to anybody for any reason provided it is not discriminatory. A business can refuse service to anybody for acting like an asshole.

16

I went into a cake shop once and asked if they would sell me a wasp - after all, they had one in the window…

17

… and would they?

18

Hmmmmm…good point.

OK, let’s try this: “I would have pistol-whipped the idiot, and sent him out without any Assassin’s anything and then gone on vacation!”

I feel pretty good about that one. Yep. That’s the ticket.

19

I own a small business in PA. Several times I’ve told assholes to GTFO. I explain that once I’ve asked them to vacate the premises (aka GTFO) they are trespassing. If they do not leave I call the cops.

20

It’s been posted in another thread how many firearms manufacturers dealers will not sell to law enforcement in New York or California. So my take is that they could refuse to sell the game for any reason, provided it’s not because you’re black. Back in my high school days some of my friends tried to buy a humongous quantity of toilet paper late at night and the store flatly refused to sell it to them.

Story in the Dilbert book about how one guy desperately needed a part and finally found a place that had one left, but they refused to sell it to him because then they’d be out of stock.