Ok, so lockdown has been tough – we’d all agree about that and many of us have found our pets have helped us through the last year. Here at Law Answered we have an impressive array of dogs and cats between us, and many is the photo we’ve exchanged of animals gazing at our screens of updates or just sulking because our attention is elsewhere!

It’s been well documented that there’s been an explosion in pet ownership and there’ve been lots of reports of dogs being stolen and then re-sold – a real tragedy for owners and the animals concerned. Our attention was drawn this week to a claim about a “defective dog” under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 “CRA”.

An Old English Sheepdog puppy, “Lady” had been purchased from a breeder and went on to need a total hip replacement and to develop diabetes. The purchaser claimed that the vendor breeder had failed to giver her adequate knowledge about the state of the dog’s health and the likelihood of the dog developing hip problems.

The court held that Lady was not of satisfactory quality under the terms implied by s.9 CRA. The court then went on to look at the right to repair under s.23 CRA. Lady had undergone expensive veterinary procedures for which her owners looked to recover the costs. The court held that the right to repair was not a right to carry out repairs yourself but to return the “item” to the trader for repair. Accordingly the costs were not recoverable under s.23.

The purchaser had not tried to exercise statutory right to reject Lady. This course would have been open to the purchaser.

The purchaser also sought to rely on common law breach of contract to recover the costs associated with Lady’s treatment and her purchase price of £1,000. The contractual claim to the return of the purchase price succeeded as it was not contested, the judge did wonder, however, whether a full refund was appropriate when the purchaser obviously attached such value to Lady that she was prepared to fund Lady’s expensive vets bills. In terms of the vets bills themselves the purchaser recovered only £83.49 which was the uninsured figure of costs up to the point at which the purchaser ought reasonably to have exercised her right to reject.

An interesting case on the CRA and a bit of a cautionary tale on making sure that you check the health details of any animal you buy with great care but, on the upside, Lady was plainly loved and presumably fit after her hip replacement surgery!