RSU Expert: Should a Customer Pay for Broken or Damaged Goods?

Shopping is an essential part of our daily lives, but what should we do in a situation where you accidentally break, or damage goods while shopping by knocking something over with your backpack, for example? Inga Kudeikina, Assistant Professor at Rīga Stradiņš University (RSU) Faculty of Law, explains the customer’s and the vendor’s rights and responsibilities in such situations. She stresses that customers should treat other people’s property with the same care and responsibility as their own, and that the vendor should ensure that goods are arranged in a secure manner in the store.

Goods are most frequently broken or damaged when they are being looked at or picked up carelessly and they fall out of a customer’s hands. The law stipulates that ‘all damage that is not accidental must be reimbursed,’ but how can one assess whether the damage caused was accidental or deliberate?

Damage should be reimbursed if the following four conditions are met:

• the person has acted unlawfully
• the person has been found to be at fault
• damage has been caused
• unlawful action caused the damage

The last condition helps determine whether or not the damage is accidental, and therefore whether or not the item needs to be reimbursed.

There is a difference between goods being broken or damaged by a customer going about normal activities associated with shopping such as looking at goods, or carefully placing them in a trolley etc., and a situation where the customer has deliberately acted carelessly when picking up or replacing goods on a shelf, or throwing them into the trolley etc. In the latter situation the customer needs to reimburse the vendor for the damage they caused.

‘I would like to stress that damage reimbursement is a matter of civil law and if the customer does not wish to reimburse the damage, because they feel that they are not at fault for causing the damage, the vendor has the right to take the matter to court, but they cannot call a security guard or demand payment,’ explains lawyer Inga Kudeikina. ‘The only action that a security guard can do is to call the Police Department and establish the identity of the customer. The vendor, or owner of the goods, would then have the option of taking the matter to court, as regulated in civil law as well as Civil Procedure Law.’

In order for there not to be a dispute ‘a vendor is obligated to take care of the safety of their goods by arranging them safely on the shelves, and by ensuring that the aisles in the shop are wide enough, whereas a customer is obligated to be careful when browsing goods in a store, and handling them with the same care that they would their own property,’ stresses Assistant Professor Inga Kudeikina.