'Merchantable quality' in the sale of goods ordinance of sri lanka: does it fit anymore?

Abstract

Sale of Goods Ordinance No 11 of 1896 (SGO) of Sri Lanka is the statute which amends and codifies the law relating to the sale of goods in Sri Lanka which is based on the United Kingdom's Sale of Goods Act of 1893 (SGA). Unlike, the SGA, the SGO has not been amended since 1896. Due to the static nature of the statute, any practitioner, a law student or a layman when making reference to the SGO, without any doubt, would encounter problems enhanced, inter alia, due to ambiguity of the terms in the statute. This paper specifically discusses the term 'merchantable quality' as specified by the SGO under Conditions and Warranties in S. 15 (2) and S. 16 (2) (c ) .The same term was included in SGA and in 1987UK Law Commission Report on Sale and Supply of Goods stated that the term 'merchantable quality' should be reviewed. Later it was substituted by the term 'satisfactory quality” in 1995 by an amendment made to the act and has been in effect for over two decades. In this context a set of inevitable problems arises with regard to the retention of this term. The main research objective of this research is to find out whether Sri Lanka should also follow the footsteps of the English legislatures and change the term from 'merchantable quality' to 'satisfactory quality'. The methodology of the research is based on the traditional black letter approach and the legal research methodology. It is submitted that it is the high time to alter the term following the English example as provided by the SGA coupled with the establishment of a proper test and guidelines to measure the 'satisfactory quality