The commercials and advertisements for the PlayStation 3 say of the wonder product, “it only does everything.”
So, say I put a piece of bread into the spot where the game disc goes in an attempt to make some delicious toast. But then the PlayStation 3 bursts into flames and burns down my house because of my attempt to satiate my hunger.
I had perfectly good reason to make this toast, I thought, as the advertisement clearly said “it only does everything.”
Could I sue Sony (the makers of the PlayStation) and win, as the product did not live up to its promise and in fact destroyed my home?
AFAIK, the use of obviously hyperbolic language is allowed in advertising and no sane person would take “it only does everything” to be literally true. I also don’t think a PS3 looks enough like a toaster to be confusing (as an alternative strategy).
There are two questions here, one in contract law (sale of goods), and one in tort law. Ascenray and Superfluous Parentheses have dealt with the contract question, but there’s a tort issue here too, since the device burst into flames and caused the house to be destroyed. I think the OP could win a tort action on the grounds that a defect in the product caused the loss of the house. That’s independent of contract law: it would work if the OP had just borrowed a friend’s device to try to make toast with it. Cf. Donoghue v Stevenson, where Donoghue had not bought the bottle of ginger beer containing a snail, but had been given it by a friend.
I thought the bursting into flames was hyperbole. Even so, whatever claim you might have under a product liability theory wouldn’t be affected by the advertisement.
Furthermore, I’m pretty sure the device is going to come with a bunch of warnings that make it clear that the device doesn’t do everything.
Right – if there was a warning in 6-point type in the middle of page 499 of the shrink-wrapped manual saying, “Device may burst into flames if bread is inserted,” I don’t think the manufacturer could rely on that to escape liability.
Sears Roebuck used to have a slogan, “Sears has everything.” I often wondered what would happen if I placed a mail order for a pound of heroin with a side of shrunken human skulls.
I think you’d have to convince a jury that sticking a hunk of bread into the console with the expectation of transforming it into a scrummy bit of toast with no other adverse effects was a reasonable expectation. If you’re playing a game on it or watching a movie and it burns up? Yeah, you got yourself a winner right there because you’re using the product as clearly intended. But if you’re using the warm unit to relieve some stiff shoulder muscles and it burns you, or if you think it’d be a good idea to use it to heat your bath water, then you’re gonna get a jury of 6 reasonable people wondering who let you out of the loony bin.
Right – that’s an important issue to raise. My guess is that the average “reasonable person” would expect the device to cease functioning with bread stuck inside, but would not expect it to burst into flames. So part of the argument might be why it burst into flames: would any similar device do the same? or was there some manufacturing defect in this one?