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Topic Date User

Liability for second hand gear 29-Jul-2008 At 9:23:19 AM Ronny

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Dear armchair clients,

First (and this bit is serious), if you want real legal advice that you can rely on, you need to see a real laywer (and pay for it). The reason you see a real lawyer is that if someone did sue you (after you'd followed your lawyer's legal advice), you would sue your lawyer (for giving you crap advice). I'm happy to give you my thoughts on your question, but those thoughts are probably worth about as much as the paper they're written on - so you can't rely on them. If you do and get sued - your problem.

I can't think of any statutes that would cause issues - but there are always crazy statutes lurking around that you don't know of.

Common law-wise, as a general rule you have a duty to do what is reasonable when you are in a situation where it is reasonably forseeable that your actions may cause damage to another. Its clearly forseeable here, so the issue is just what is reasonable. I would have thought that clear and accurate disclosure of the fact that the gear is second hand, and that you don't warrant it is ok would be sufficient (that's reasonable isn't it?).

That said, its all contextual. If the buyer was so obviously inexperienced that you could tell that he/she didn't have any idea about the dangers of used gear, then maybe you would owe a greater duty. Also, if you knew of a particular problem that you also knew could not be seen by the buyer during his/her inspection, you would potentially be in trouble if you didn't disclose it (like if you'd been soaking your slings in petrol or something).

I've never thought twice about selling second hand gear, but then when I sold a 'new' rope recently (still in packet) I was pretty careful about how it was stored/packaged as I figured that someone buying 'new' gear would expect it to be in new condition, and not be looking for second hand defects.

James