Top 10 List

This website was created by Karl Dore, the principal architect of the Consumer Product Warranty and Liability Act. It is intended to provide information on the legislation, not to give or offer individual legal advice. For further assistance contact New Brunswick's Consumer Affairs Branch or one of the Rentalsman Offices.

This page was last modified on July 25, 2000.

1. Reasonable expectations. The objective throughout the Consumer Product Warranty and Liability Act (CPWALA) is to provide reasonable protection for reasonable expectations.
2. Application. CPWALA applies to any sale or supply of a consumer product by anyone in the business of supplying consumer products of that kind (e.g. retailers, manufacturers, wholesalers).
3. Contract. CPWALA changes many of the normal contract rules regarding express warranties, implied warranties, remedies for breach, privity, parol evidence, and disclaimers/waivers/contracting out.
4. Tort. CPWALA imposes strict tort liability on all suppliers of dangerously defective consumer products.
5. Warranties. CPWALA warranties apply in favour of all buyers of consumer products, regardless of whether they are consumer buyers or business buyers.
6. Remedies. CPWALA gives special remedies to consumer buyers.
7. Disclaimers. CPWALA gives consumer buyers extensive protection against disclaimers/waivers/contracting out.
8. All suppliers responsible. Besides their rights and remedies against their immediate suppliers, CPWALA also gives consumers direct recourse rights against manufacturers and other remote distributors even when they have no privity of contract with them.
9. Dealers' recourse rights. CPWALA does not stop at the dealer's doorstep, but streams legal responsibility right back to the source of the problem. For their own liability to consumers, dealers are given recourse rights all the way back to the manufacturer or other distributor responsible for the goods being unsatisfactory in the first place. These recourse rights are non-excludable.
10. Trickiest definition for dealers and their lawyers to know: "consumer loss." It's by its definition of "consumer loss" that CPWALA gives dealers non-excludable recourse rights all the way back to whoever was responsible for the goods being unsatisfactory in the first place. CPWALA defines "consumer loss" to include the liability that a dealer bears to a consumer. Through this definition, the dealer is protected against disclaimers/waivers/contracting out of its recourse rights (section 26); is given recourse rights against remote suppliers even when it has no privity of contract with them (section 23); and is given recourse rights for its own strict liability in tort for dangerously defective consumer products (section 27).