A B.C. company must fully refund a customer who bought a sectional more than three years ago because of the “squeaky noise” the sofa made when sat upon, the province’s Civil Resolution Tribunal has ruled.
A decision in the case was posted online last week – outlining the dispute over the noise and the efforts to identify its cause.
Maria Musto bought the couch from Sandy’s Furniture Ltd. in 2021 for $2,996 before taxes and delivery, according to the decision, which notes the piece of furniture had to be ordered by the company and could not be tested by the buyer pre-purchase.
Musto was seeking a refund, saying the sofa was “defective,” a claim the company refuted, saying the customer’s floor was causing the squeak.
Two weeks after the sectional was delivered, Musto contacted the company to report that “the sofa made a squeaky noise whenever someone sat on it,” the decision said.
Workers from the furniture company were sent to investigate and tried to resolve the issue by adding furniture pads under the sofa’s legs – but the squeak persisted. Similarly, a number of repairs and modifications made at the company’s warehouse didn’t eliminate the sound, according to the decision.
Next, the company hired someone the tribunal refers to as an “independent furniture technician” or “IFT” to troubleshoot the issue. The findings of that person’s inspection, the tribunal decided, showed the issue was with the sofa itself and not the floor on which it sat.
“I find that a person sitting on the sofa caused the sofa’s frame to flex, which in turn caused the sofa’s legs to move along Mrs. Musto’s floor, ultimately resulting in a squeaking noise,” tribunal member Peter Nyhuus wrote in the decision.
“While the interaction between the sofa and Mrs. Musto’s ‘very smooth’ floor ultimately caused the noise, I find that the IFT blamed the sofa, not the floor. On balance, I find that the noise’s cause is primarily the sofa’s moving legs and that this was a defect with the sofa.”
Further, Nyhuus found the report from the IFT suggested it “was not a trivial or minor annoyance that Mrs. Musto should be expected to live with.”
The decision explained that the legal framework governing the contract for the sofa’s sale is the province’s Sale of Goods Act. The legislation has a section that says when something is sold, a warranty is implied – with exceptions for cases where the item is used or where the buyer had the opportunity to examine the item before deciding to buy it.
The implied warranty requires goods to be “reasonably fit for their express or implied purpose, of merchantable quality, and durable for a reasonable period in normal use,” according to the decision.
A squeaky sofa, Nyhuus found, did not meet the criteria.
“I find that a reasonable person would not expect a new sofa, worth almost $3,000, to make a squeaking noise when sat on. As I have found that the squeaking noise was primarily caused by the sofa, I find that the sofa was not of a merchantable quality,” he wrote.
The sofa – because of its squeakiness – was determined to have “little or no resale value” if it was returned to the company and so the tribunal ordered a refund of the entire purchase price plus tax, which worked out to $3,355.52.
Musto also sought to be reimbursed for the $150 delivery fee, but the tribunal declined to award that amount because other items were dropped off along with the sofa.
