CASE STUDY: IMPLIED WARRANTY

In this paper, Keller v. Inland Metals All Weather Conditioning, Inc. case will be reviewed to determine if Inland Metals made an express warranty and if they breached it. A warranty is “a guarantee that goods will meet certain standards” (Beatty, 2008, p.231). Warranties can be written or an oral agreement that is given by the seller or manufacturer to the buyer. When the seller’s actions or words convey that the goods will meet specific criteria, it is an express warranty. To take it one more step further, when “the seller knows that the buyer plans to use the goods for a particular purposes, the seller generally is held to warrant that the goods are in fact fit for that purpose” (Beatty, 2008, p.233) is called an implied warranty of fitness for a particular purpose. Please refer to Beatty (2008) textbook for a summary of Keller v. Inland Metals All Weather Conditioning, Inc. case on page 231. The Keller’s solicited a request for proposal from Inland and another contractor to address the hot, humid, and foul smelling air in their pool area at their fitness club. When Inland’s proposal came back at a lower cost for a 7 ½-ton dehumidifier, they were concerned about the performance of this unit as the other contractor recommended a 10-ton dehumidifier. Inland’s president and a representative from the machine’s manufacturer came back and reassess the use of the 7 ½ ton dehumidifier for the Keller’s pool area. When Inland’s president sent the Kellers a letter stating that “this ducted system will rid you of the sweating walls and eliminate those offensive odors, and overall bad air”, he was indeed giving an expressed warranty. The unit was installed and did not remove the foul smelling air. The Kellers immediately contacted Inland concerning the on-going issue and eventually voiced a breach in their contract. The Kellers are not experts in air quality so they relied on Inland’s expertise to determine the proper size dehumidifier to work for their pool area. They questioned the size of the unit before agreeing to the contract and depended on Inland president’s letter for affirmation. Inland stated several times that this machine would meet the needs of the Keller’s pool area, first when they submitted the request for proposal and secondly in the president’s letter. For both of these situations, an expressed warranty was made. Even though the actual unit was in working order, it did not meet the implied warranty of fitness for a particular purpose; therefore, the contract was breached when the air quality didn’t improve for the Keller’s pool area.

References
Beatty, J., Samuelson, S., and Bredeson, D. (2008) Introduction to Business Law 4e. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.