BC man files lawsuit against three companies for faulty fridge

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Warranty is the ultimate saviour when our trusted technology starts to fail. Except it didn’t help one BC man when his fridge became faulty after six months of use.

According to a decision from the BC Civil Resolution Tribunal, in March 2022, Steven Hodgins bought a Samsung fridge from Home Depot, which he reported as faulty in October 2022 for not holding its temperature.

When the fridge was not repaired or replaced under its warranty, Hodgins filed a lawsuit against Home Depot, Samsung Electronics Canada Inc. (Samsung), and the company sent in to inspect the appliance, HE Universal Appliance Service Ltd. (HE).

Hodgins claimed $2,407.08 for the cost of the fridge. But that wasn’t his only claim. He took his lawsuit one step further and sued for $1,000 for spoiled food.

Talk about controversial.

According to the decision, Samsung sent a HE technician to inspect the faulty fridge on October 12 after Hodgins reported the issue. The technician said they used a “temperature gun” to test the fridge’s temperature and then used a smart service app to inspect the temperatures of the refrigerator over the past five days.

The technician reported that the fridge was “good,” but Hodgins disagreed. The decision detailed that Hodgins claimed that the technician “merely waved the thermometer about till he found a single reading that was within scope.”

However, the court found that without expert evidence to prove that the technician breached inspection standards, Hodgins’ claim against the appliance company was moot.

That’s one out of three companies in the clear.

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While the claim against the inspection company was cleared, the court found contradictions in the inspection report. The report recorded that the fridge “needs to take time to be looked at,” with the risk of an underlying issue that could need repairing later.

Despite the report saying this, Samsung had emailed Hodgins to say that the technician had not found any problems. Hodgins followed up a week later to report the same issues with the fridge, according to the decision.

The court ultimately decided that Samsung should pay Hodgins the cost of the fridge after it failed to consider all parts of the technician’s report.

The court also came to that decision after considering the fridge’s durability. The decision detailed that the use of the fridge for six months before the reported issues and the repeated reports of the defective temperature indicated that the product was not reasonably durable.

Samsung and Home Depot were jointly ordered to pay Hodgins $2,407.08 as reimbursement for the cost of the refrigerator, alongside $124.57 in pre-judgement interest and $175 in CRT fees.

As for the $1,000 for the spoiled food? Hodgins ran out of luck there. The court shared that Hodgins provided no evidence of loss or what needed replacing and decided against that part of his claim.