Cases

In my forty-eight years as a paralegal handling consumer protection cases in Mumbai, I saw this scenario more times than I can count. A family buys a refrigerator or a washing machine — an expensive purchase, often six months of savings for a working-class household. The manufacturer gives a two-year warranty. The machine works fine during those two years. On month twenty-five, the compressor fails. The repair bill is nearly half the price of a new unit. The manufacturer says the warranty has expired, and the matter is closed. The consumer is left holding a broken machine and a bill they cannot afford. The question is not whether the warranty has technically expired — that is a fact. The question is whether a warranty period that is significantly shorter than the reasonable expected lifespan of a product is itself a fair practice. A refrigerator should last ten to fifteen years. A washing machine should last eight to ten. When a manufacturer designs a warranty to cover only the period during which a product is statistically unlikely to fail, they are not making a promise — they are making a calculation. They know most failures happen after year three. So they set the warranty at two years and call it generous. The two sides are clear. Side A says a contract is a contract. The buyer knew the warranty term when they made the purchase. If they wanted longer coverage, they could have bought an extended warranty or a more expensive brand. Holding a manufacturer liable beyond the agreed term destroys the predictability that makes commerce possible. Side B says that a warranty is not a lottery ticket. It is a representation of the product’s expected durability. When a product fails far short of its reasonable lifespan, the warranty period was misleading. The manufacturer should bear a share of the repair cost proportional to the gap between the warranty period and the reasonable life expectancy of the appliance. This principle already exists in the concept of an implied warranty of merchantability, but it is rarely enforced in practice because consumers do not have the resources to litigate. This trial asks the community to decide: should manufacturers be held to a standard of reasonable product lifespan, even when the written warranty has technically expired? I am asking for a binding decision on the principle, because without a clear rule, the burden always falls on the consumer.