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The Supply of Goods (Implied Terms) Act 1973 89

If a sale is made by both sample and description, the bulk of the goods must correspond
with both the sample and the description. For example, in Nichol vGodts (1854)oil was
sold by sample and was also described as ‘foreign rape seed oil’. The goods not only had to
correspond with the sample but also had to correspond with the description.

The Supply of Goods (Implied Terms) Act 1973

As we have seen, the terms implied by the Sale of Goods Act have given excellent protec-
tion to buyers of goods since 1893. However, for many years people who acquired goods
under contracts which could not be classed as contracts of sale of goods had to rely on case
law for protection.
In the 1970s Parliament passed two statutes which extended the Sale of Goods Act
implied terms into other types of contract.
The first of these statutes was the Supply of Goods (Implied Terms) Act 1973 (SGITA
1973), which extended the implied terms into contracts of hire-purchase. The terms implied,
which are virtually identical to the terms implied by ss. 12–15 of the Sale of Goods Act 1979,
are contained in the following sections.

Section 8 Right to pass ownership

Section 9 Correspondence with description

Section 10(1) Satisfactory quality (business contracts only)

Section 10(2) Fitness for purpose (business contracts only)

Section 11 Correspondence with sample

A contract of hire-purchaseis one whereby a customer agrees to hire goods for a certain
period, and is given an option to purchase the goods for a small sum at the end of that
period.

Example

Mr Smith takes a fridge on hire-purchase from a shop. The fridge would have cost £350 to

buy, but Mr Smith takes it on hire-purchase for three years at £17 a month. Until the final

payment is made, Mr Smith is merely hiring the fridge. The last payment he makes will

include a nominal purchase price and when Mr Smith makes the final payment he then buys

the fridge.

Godley vPerry (1960)

A six-year-old boy bought a catapult which snapped in use and caused the boy to lose an

eye. The boy sued the shopkeeper under s. 14(2) and won. The shopkeeper sued the

wholesaler under s. 15 because, before buying the catapults, he had tested a sample

catapult by pulling back the elastic, and this sample had not snapped.

HeldThe shopkeeper won under s. 15. The defect was not apparent on a reasonable

examination of the sample.