Bulging is usually an expression or exaggeration by a seller or in an advertisement regarding the quality of the goods offered for sale. It represents opinions rather than facts and is generally not considered a legally binding promise. Statements like “This car is in good condition” and “Your wife will love this watch” are breathtaking. LawInfo.com National Bar Directory and Legal Consumer Resources Subscribe to the largest dictionary in the United States and get thousands more definitions and advanced searches – ad-free! One of the most famous cases dealing with Puffery was the English Court of Appeal`s Carlill v. Carbolic Smoke Ball Company case in 1892, which dealt with the question of whether a reward should be paid if a flu vaccination device did not work. The manufacturers had paid for the advertising by stating that £100 would be paid in such circumstances, but refused to keep that promise. Part of their defense was that such a statement was a “mere puff” and should not be taken seriously. Although the defense ultimately lost the case, the court also recognized that some statements made by advertisers would not give rise to liability. In particular, the court suggested that the promises of healing that appeared in the Carbolic Smoke Ball advertisement were not serious enough to establish legal liability. For this reason, it justified the decision to hold the company liable by another party to the complaint, which mentioned the money deposited with the bank. In common parlance, puffery refers to exaggerated or false praise. [1] Puffery is used to “inflate” what is described.
In law, puffery is usually cited as a defense argument: it identifies useless speech, usually by a salesperson, that does not establish legal liability. In circular reasoning, legal explanations of this normative position describe unenforceable speech as a statement that no “reasonable person” would take seriously anyway. [2] [3] FindLaw.com Free and reliable legal information for consumers and legal professionals n. exaggerates the good sides of a product, a company, a property and the prospects for future appreciation, profit and growth. Since a certain amount of “puffs” can be expected from each seller, it cannot be the basis for a claim for fraud or breach of contract unless the exaggeration exceeds reality. However, if the buffering contains outright lies or has no factual basis (“Sears Roebuck builds next to your store”), a lawsuit for contract termination or fraud against the seller is possible. (See: Fraud) Abogado.com The #1 Spanish legal site for consumers The FindLaw legal dictionary – free access to more than 8260 definitions of legal terms. Search for a definition or browse our legal glossaries. “Puffing.” Merriam-Webster.com Legal Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/legal/puffing. Retrieved 27 September 2022.
Traditionally, the doctrine of buffer protection in the law has been understood as a legal preference of sellers over buyers and thus as a case of caveat emptor (“beware buyers”). However, the doctrine actually had a twofold implication. In addition to protecting sellers and promoting advertising, it was also a legal inferiority or mockery of advertising, which is considered a paradigmatic case of sales pitch. By treating Puffs as frivolous, the doctrine sent a message that degraded advertising as a domain, consistent with widespread attacks on the rise of mass advertising. [6] At FindLaw.com, we pride ourselves on being the leading source of free legal information and resources on the Internet. Contact us. If you exaggerate compliments to get something in return, you`ve committed to buffering. In addition to this common usage, puffery is also an actual legal term that means “an exaggeration or statement that no reasonable person would consider to be fact.” So if a furniture company claims in a TV commercial that sleeping one night on their mattresses increases your IQ by 20 points, you can be sure that this is buffering. In a legal context, the term comes from the 1892 appeal case Carlill v.
Carbolic Smoke Ball Company, which dealt with the question of whether a refund should be paid if a flu vaccine machine did not work. The manufacturers had paid to announce that £100 would be paid in such circumstances and did not keep that promise. Part of their defense was that such a statement was just a “whiff of it” and should not be taken seriously. Although the defense ultimately lost the case, it maintained the principle that certain statements made by advertisers that were clearly not made seriously can be exempted from the usual rules for promises in open contracts. The legal history of Puffery is part of the history of the mass market. In the eighteenth century, the term “puff” was important for auction law, where it implied the action of a person employed to bid at auction to increase the price. This person was known as a tampon. In 1776, Lord Mansfield in England undermined the use of stamps by defining them as fraud, a decision that led to nearly a century of debate over the extent of the ban and its impact on the validity of auctions. [4] Meanwhile, beginning in the 1820s and with increasing intensity after the mid-nineteenth century, the term “puff” was used in English law in its earlier popular sense, and thus with the opposite implication.
Instead of fraud that could undermine the validity of transactions in the market, the pouf represented inertia or futility that no one could influence, and thus also the opposite of legally serious discourse.
