A purchase a nylon underwear from a hosiery shopkeeper for his use. Due to presence of some chemical used as a bleaching agent in the garment, A develops skin disease. Discuss the remedies of A against (a) the shopkeeper, (b) the manufacturer of the garment. Will it make any difference if it discovered that A was allergic to nylon?

The Facts Mirror a Well-Established Precedent

This problem is directly modelled on Grant v. Australian Knitting Mills Ltd., a case specifically discussed in the commentary on Section 16, where woollen underwear purchased from a retailer caused dermatitis in the buyer owing to the presence of excess sulphites left in the garment during manufacture. The Privy Council held that this amounted to a breach of the implied condition of merchantable quality, even though the defect was not apparent on ordinary examination, since the garment's defect rendered it unfit for its only proper use — being worn next to the skin. The parallel to A's nylon underwear, defective owing to a bleaching chemical, is exact, and the same reasoning governs both cases.

A's Remedy Against the Shopkeeper

A's remedy against the shopkeeper rests on two overlapping implied conditions under Section 16. First, under Section 16(2), since A bought the underwear by description from a shopkeeper dealing in goods of that description, there is an implied condition that the goods shall be of merchantable quality. Second, under Section 16(1), if A made known, expressly or impliedly, the purpose for which he required the underwear — namely, ordinary personal wear — and relied on the shopkeeper's skill and judgment in selecting it, an implied condition of fitness for that particular purpose also arises. Where a retail dealer sells underpants, the law presumes he knows they are required for the particular purpose of being worn next to the skin, and he is liable if the underwear causes skin disease due to a latent defect.

The proviso to Section 16(2) — that there is no implied condition as regards defects which the buyer's own examination ought to have revealed — does not assist the shopkeeper here, since the chemical defect was latent and could not have been detected by an ordinary examination of the garment before purchase. This is precisely the point emphasised in Grant's case, where the Privy Council found the proviso inapplicable because the buyer's examination "would not have revealed the defect, i.e., the hidden presence of sulphites in the underwear". A's breach-of-condition claim against the shopkeeper therefore survives, entitling him to reject the goods, if he still possesses them and has not otherwise "accepted" them under Section 42, or in any event to sue for damages flowing from the breach.

A's Remedy Against the Manufacturer

The position is fundamentally different as regards the manufacturer, since there is no privity of contract between A and the manufacturer — A purchased the garment from the shopkeeper, not directly from the manufacturer, and the statutory implied conditions under Section 16 attach only to the contract of sale between buyer and seller. A therefore cannot sue the manufacturer under the Sale of Goods Act at all. His remedy against the manufacturer, if any, must instead be founded in the general law of tort, specifically the principle of manufacturer's liability for negligence in the preparation and packing of products intended for ultimate consumption or use without intermediate examination — the very principle famously established in Donoghue v. Stevenson and subsequently applied by the Privy Council in Grant v. Australian Knitting Mills Ltd. itself, where the manufacturer was held liable in negligence to the ultimate consumer for the excess sulphites left in the wool during the manufacturing process. A would need to establish that the manufacturer owed him a duty of care, that this duty was breached through negligent manufacture or inadequate quality control, and that this negligence caused his injury — a materially higher evidentiary burden than the largely strict, contract-based liability governing his claim against the shopkeeper.

Effect of A's Own Allergy to Nylon

The answer changes dramatically if it is discovered that A himself was allergic to nylon, rather than that the garment itself was inherently defective. In such a case, the underwear would not be unmerchantable or unfit for its ordinary purpose at all — it would be entirely fit for use by an ordinary person of normal susceptibility, and the injury would stem purely from A's own idiosyncratic physical condition, not from any defect in the goods themselves. The governing principle of merchantable quality is that the article should be "reasonably capable of being used for the purposes for which such goods are commonly sold," judged from the standpoint of a reasonable person of ordinary health and sensitivity — it is not a guarantee against every conceivable individual reaction that a hypersensitive buyer might personally suffer. This distinction was recognised even within Grant's own case, where the Privy Council was careful to note that the buyer's own unusually sensitive skin was not the cause of the injury — the wool genuinely contained an excess of irritant chemicals beyond what any normal wearer could tolerate, and it was this objective defect in the goods, not any personal susceptibility of the buyer, that founded liability.

Had A's injury instead resulted purely from a personal nylon allergy, unrelated to any chemical residue in the specific garment, both his contractual claim against the shopkeeper and his tortious claim against the manufacturer would fail. Against the shopkeeper, there would be no breach of Section 16, since the goods would be perfectly merchantable and fit for their ordinary purpose — the defect, if it can even be called that, would lie in A's own body, not in the goods sold. Against the manufacturer, there would similarly be no actionable negligence, since a manufacturer cannot be expected to guard against every unpredictable individual allergic reaction a particular consumer might have to an otherwise safe and properly manufactured product.

Summary Table