I have a question about how buying/selling/contracts work with the non-agression principle. (Including fraud.) The problem I have is with regard to the fuzziness involving certain products/services. My general question is how much responsibility does a seller have in ensuring the safety or even the accuracy of the product which he sells? Obviously if I sell rat poison labeled as tomato sauce and you purchase it and eat it that is fraud. However, what if I knowingly sell a car which is literally fatal to drive at high speeds, say 90 MPH. That is, the car explodes at 90 MPH. Is that fraud? Is it unethical? The buyer didn’t ask me if the car was safe at such a speed. Why should it be assumed that it would be safe at such a speed? How far does the liability of the seller go?
It’s one of those things that has to do with custom. Obviously, if I intentionally drive my car into a tree, and I were to try to sue that car manufacturer for my medical care, the judge would throw it out. This is because it is people do not consider it normal to intentionally drive the car into a tree. However, people do frequently drive cars at fast speeds on the highway. I see people drive 80mph quite regularly, and I do see people going at 90mph on some highways. Driving at a speed of 90mph is not in the same category as intentionally driving into a tree. It may not be common, but it is in some ways acceptable behavior (even if it is banned by the state). Thus, if someone were to drive at 90mph, and their car then explodes, the car manufacturer has sold a product that has not stood up to customary use. This would be fraud, even if the buyer did not explicitly ask if it is okay. It is assumed by people in general that a car can travel at 90mph without exploding.
Here’s a pretty good analogy:
You want to purchase a new front door for your house. You buy what seems to be a solid oak door. It turns out that appearances are deceiving, and the wooden door can actually be smashed in quite easily. Clearly, there are flimsy doors that are made and they have a purpose, possibly as a screen door. But that’s not what you were purchasing. You wanted a solid door. You may not have explicitly asked to find out if it were flimsy, but if it is customary for doors that appear to be solid are in fact solid, someone who sells you a door that appears to be solid but isn’t would be guilty of fraud.
It is expected that solid wooden doors keep burglars out, while flimsy screen doors won’t. It is expected that cars be able to travel at their top speed without blowing up.
That leads me to one other point: if the manufacturer knows that the car would blow up at 90mph, why not just cap its top speed at 80mph?
+1 gotlucky, excellent response
I suspect one has to get a little technical here to answer that accurately.
In practicality, unless you are a thief fencing stolen product or a fly by night here today/ gone tomorrow, you would not sell a product that under certain circumstances could kill the buyer, you would warn him of it only for the sake of not becoming an outcast with a bad reputation. If you are a businessman, you would have more incentive to make sure your buyer is satisfied for the sake of repeat business. But you asked about ethics not practicality.
So then it depends on the circumstances what your buyer would think the contract implies.
In general you do not HAVE to disclose everything you know, but your silence might imply comparable safety.
Scene 1:
If you have a car dealership and the sticker calls it a “car” and you are in the same street as other car dealers with cars that do not explode.. the implied contract would be that a buyer can expect similar safety performance from your car as from the competition- even if you do not disclose it’s weaknesses. If it explodes that would be fraud. If it gets 5 miles less per gallon, that would not be fraud.
Scene 2:
If you inherited a farm full of junk equipment amongst others, a car that might ex[plode at 90 miles an hour, you sell in bulk everything on the farm “as is” you are under no obligation to disclose anything. The buyer would be aware of normal caveat emptor precations.
Scene 3.
Your shop does not sell “cars” but modes of transportation. You have tricycles, gokarts, golfcarts and scooters. Your buyers typically use it to deliver groceries or letters and run errands. There is no unwritten expectation for any of your vehicles to need to go 90 miles an hour. If somebody uses it for something other than its intended use,-no fraud on your behalf.
If he tells you he is going to race it round a racetrack different story. You can choose to warn him against it, or you can sign a disclaimer that it is sold as is and its performance is not warranted for uses other than mail delivery… but under those circumstances there is an implied contract -not saying anything is fraud.