French Consumer Law is a comprehensive and comparative overview of French and EU law in this field, covering: advertising, unfair commercial practices, conditions for the validity of contracts, unfair terms, product conformity, latent defects, product safety.

French Consumer Law

The Consumer Code does not exclude the possibility for the purchaser to claim damages for harm resulting from the non-conformity of the good , particularly when the professional seller has attempted to remedy the defect by making modifications that do not comply with the prevailing standards of the trade . Thus, the repair of the good does not prevent the purchaser from seeking compensation for hi …

Damages

The Consumer Code does not exclude the possibility for the purchaser to claim damages for harm resulting from the non-conformity of the good , particularly when the professional seller has attempted to remedy the defect by making modifications that do not comply with the prevailing standards of the trade . Thus, the repair of the good does not prevent the purchaser from seeking compensation for his loss of enjoyment by an award of damages . Similarly, the cancellation of the sale for non-conformity does not prevent the granting of damages to the buyer  to compensate for his loss of enjoyment, the costs incurred to attempt a repair and the problems and inconvenience at the origin of his non-pecuniary loss .

The conditions for granting such damages fall within the ordinary law of contractual liability : the buyer must therefore demonstrate that the seller has breached one of its contractual obligations, the damage and causal link between the damage and the breach .

  Article L. 217-8, paragraph 3 (former Art. L. 211-11 para. 2) of the Consumer Code: “The provisions of the present chapter are without prejudice to the award of damages”.

CA Chambéry, 14 September 2023, LawLex202300011733JBJ.

  CA Nancy, 7 June 2012, LawLex201300000571JBJ; CA Metz, 13 January 2011, LawLex201300000544JBJ.

CA Toulouse, 10 September 2018, LawLex201800001314JBJ, holding that since the lack of conformity at the origin of the rescission of the sale stemmed from a design error by the vehicle manufacturer, the latter's fault-based liability is likely to be incurred towards the purchaser and the lender, as well as is the liability of the intermediary seller in respect of the harmful consequences of the rescission.

 CA Angers, 28 April 2015, LawLex201600000143JBJ. See also Cass. 1re civ., 9 December 2015, LawLex201600000096JBJ, awarding damages to the buyer to compensate his moral damage caused by the sale of a puppy affected by a lack of conformity causing serious vision problems and whose replacement is impossible within the meaning of Article L. 211-9 of the Consumer Code, since it concerns a living being, unique and irreplaceable, intended to receive the affection of its master, without any economic vocation.

In this sense, see CA Angers, 2 April 2024, LawLex202400002938JBJ: the legal guarantee of conformity is a special regime that confers specific rights on the consumer by establishing a hierarchy between those rights, so that a claim cannot be successful on this basis, where the buyer, who invokes this warranty without invoking any of the rights of “repair of the goods, replacement of the goods, reduction of the price or rescission of the sale” available under the warranty, claims only damages, which, while they remain possible under Article L. 211-11, (now L. 217-8 of the Consumer Code,) and Article L. 211-13, (now L. 217-30) of the Consumer Code, which preserves the buyer's right to exercise any other contractual or extra-contractual action recognized by law, do not fall under the guarantee regime instituted by this code.

 CA Nancy, 9 June 2011, LawLex201300000554JBJ.

French Consumer Law

527. Damages

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Les décisions de justice citées dans ce paragraphe :

Les notions juridiques connexes

527. Damages

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Les décisions de justice citées dans ce paragraphe :

Les notions juridiques connexes

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au contenu exclusif Livv – juristes d’entreprise