Claims under the Consumer Protection Act 1987

Published by a UU��ֱ�� PI & Clinical Negligence expert

Practice notes

Claims under the Consumer Protection Act 1987

Published by a UU��ֱ�� PI & Clinical Negligence expert

Practice notes

Nature of rights under the Consumer Protection Act 1987

It is important for practitioners to understand the distinction between the rights conferred by the Consumer Protection Act 1987 (CPA 1987) and those provided by the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (CRA 2015).

While CRA 2015 provides for contractual rights between the seller and the consumer, CPA 1987 confers rights against ‘producers’.

CPA 1987 does not limit a claimant’s ability to pursue other remedies against that producer (or any other relevant person in the supply chain) such as negligence or through a claim for breach of contract. In practice it can therefore be expected that, where available, more than one cause of action might be advanced by a claimant. See Practice Notes: Product liability—claims in negligence and Claims in contract for product liability cases.

For further guidance on CRA 2015, see Practice Note: Claims in contract for product liability cases.

Potential defendants

Liability for damage caused by defective products may be attributable to:

•
producers—usually the manufacturer of the product or, in the case of raw

Jurisdiction(s):

United Kingdom

Key definition:

Negligence definition

What does Negligence mean?

Negligence is 'the omission to do something which a reasonable man, guided upon those considerations which ordinarily regulate human affairs, would do, or doing something which a prudent and reasonable man would not do' (Blythe v Birmingham Waterworks (1856) 11 Exch 781, at p 784). It is accepted that the test for breach of duty is objective, in the sense that the individual character and mental and physical features of the particular defendant are usually irrelevant.

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