A furniture store involved in a BC Civil Resolution Tribunal dispute was ordered to refund a customer thousands of dollars over what was determined to be a defective sofa.
The problem with the couch? It squeaked. The customer claimed a refund of $3,505.51.
The furniture store claimed that it wasn’t the furniture itself squeaking but the floor on which the sofa was placed.
Here’s how the tribunal sorted through this squeaky case.
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Maria Musto purchased the sofa from Sandy’s Furniture on Sept. 6, 2021. She bought some other items that she had an issue with, but they weren’t part of the dispute, nor did she claim a refund for them.
The sofa was delivered the following May, and Musto told the tribunal that it squeaked whenever someone sat on it. In July of that same year, Sandy’s Furniture sent drivers over to try and troubleshoot the issue. To do so, they added some pads to the legs of the sofa.
Unfortunately, the squeaking did not stop.
In a follow-up call, after Musto explained that the problem wasn’t solved, Sandy’s suggested it must’ve been the floor or the carpet causing the squeak.
Later that same July, Sandy’s actually took the sofa back to its warehouse to try and troubleshoot it further. After tinkering with the sofa, Sandy’s said one of their technicians couldn’t hear the sound.
A few days later, the couch was returned to Musto. She called the next day to report that the sofa was still squeaking. In September 2022, an independent technician visited Musto’s home to check the sofa.
The independent technician, who considers themselves a ‘furniture medic,’ suggested that the large sofa had thin legs, leading to the squeaking. Sandy’s refuted this claim and again suggested Musto’s smooth floors were causing the squeak. The independent technician, referred to as IFT, was hired by Sandy’s Furniture, so the tribunal saw it as a neutral third party and accepted its expert opinion on the sofa.
“While the interaction between the sofa and Mrs. Musto’s ‘very smooth’ floor ultimately caused the noise, I find that the IFT blamed the sofa, not the floor. On balance, I find that the noise’s cause is primarily the sofa’s moving legs and that this was a defect with the sofa,” the tribunal said.
Ultimately, the tribunal determined Musto was owed a refund, and Sandy’s Furniture was ordered to pay $3,918.78 within 21 days of the decision.