Rossi v. 21st Century Concepts, Inc.

162 Misc. 2d 932, 618 N.Y.S.2d 182, 1994 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 466
CourtYonkers City Court
DecidedOctober 3, 1994
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 162 Misc. 2d 932 (Rossi v. 21st Century Concepts, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Yonkers City Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Rossi v. 21st Century Concepts, Inc., 162 Misc. 2d 932, 618 N.Y.S.2d 182, 1994 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 466 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 1994).

Opinion

OPINION OF THE COURT

Thomas A. Dickerson, J.

The plaintiff, soon to be a new bride, attended the Great Bridal Expo. The Bridal Expo featured exhibitors displaying a broad spectrum of goods and services, typically purchased by recently engaged young women eager to possess all that a modern American bride should possess. Amongst the many exhibitors was the defendant, 21st Century Concepts, Inc. doing business as Royal Prestige (Royal Prestige). Royal Prestige, a direct marketing company, displayed a variety of knives, china, glassware, water filters and cookware. The plaintiff stopped at the Royal Prestige booth and filled out a card noting her name, address and phone number.

Royal Prestige sells its products through door-to-door sales. Royal Prestige became aware of the plaintiff and her bridal needs when she filled out a "lead” card at the Bridal Expo. Thereafter, Royal Prestige salesman Larry Kieffer called the plaintiff seeking to arrange a home sales visit. To induce the plaintiff to listen to his sales pitch, Mr. Kieffer offered plaintiff $100 in cash, a free facial and 100 rolls of free film.

[934]*934Intrigued, the plaintiff agreed and on September 28, 1993 Mr. Kieffer knocked on the plaintiff’s door, gave her $100 in cash, a free facial and one roll of free film. To obtain the remaining 99 rolls of "free” film the plaintiff had to use the first roll and have it processed by Royal Prestige’s chosen film processor. After paying for her prints the plaintiff would be given one new roll of free film and so on. In addition, after the sale Mr. Kieffer offered plaintiff a reduced cost Caribbean vacation which plaintiff later rejected because of the poor quality and location of the offered hotels.

Once inside the plaintiff’s home, Mr. Kieffer spent 2Vi hours extolling the alleged virtues of the entire line of Royal Prestige products. Most of that time (IV2 hours) was spent on selling plaintiff a set of pots and pans pretentiously identified as the Royal Prestige Health System (the Health System). The Health System consisted of several cooking pots which appeared to be small pressure cookers. These miniature pressure cookers were beautifully photographed and described in elegant terms as sauce pan, skillet, dutch oven and steamer/ colander. The Health System was wildly expensive, e.g., the cost (including freight, handling and local sales tax) of the Royal Prestige "22 piece Health System” which consisted of seven pots plus accessories was $1,505.63 or nearly $200 a pot.

Mr. Kieffer pitched the Health System as a technically advanced means of retaining the nutritional value of cooked food. This claim was presented without any supporting documentation such as a Consumer Union Report or the like. According to a Royal Prestige brochure its pots were designed to cook without using water or grease beyond that already contained in the food to be cooked. In addition, Mr. Kieffer tailored his pitch to the young expectant bride by suggesting a direct relationship between using the Health System pots and preventing heart disease and having healthier babies. The plaintiff relied upon Mr. Kieffer’s representations about the benefits of the Health System, agreed to purchase the 22-piece Health System and gave Mr. Kieffer a check for the total cost of $1,505.63.

The front of the sales contract, dated September 28, 1993 contained the following: "You, the Purchaser, may cancel this transaction at any time prior to midnight of the third business day after the date of this transaction. See the attached notice of cancellation form for an explanation of this right.” On the reverse side of the sales contract under the title of "Notice of Cancellation” there was extensive language regarding plain[935]*935tiffs cancellation rights. The notice of cancellation contained blanks for the date, the name and address of the seller and the last possible day to cancel the contract. Mr. Kieffer failed to complete any of these blanks.

After receiving her ordered Health System on October 27, 1993, the plaintiff decided to cancel the sales contract and returned the pots with a letter demanding a full refund. Royal Prestige rejected plaintiffs cancellation of the sales contract and sent the purchased pots back to the plaintiff with a letter stating "[t]he quality of our cookware is considered by many experts to be the finest manufactured in the world today.”

DISCUSSION

At trial only the plaintiff testified as to the representations made by Mr. Kieffer during his 21/i-hour sales presentation. Predicated upon the above findings of fact, this court finds that plaintiff has asserted the following cognizable causes of action against the defendant: (1) rescission based upon a violation of Personal Property Law § 428 (Door-To-Door Sales Protection Act); (2) rescission based upon (a) want of consideration, (b) failure of consideration, (c) unconscionability, and (d) misrepresentations; and (3) violation of General Business Law § 349 (deceptive and unfair business practices).

The marketing of goods and services through door-to-door sales can be cost effective for manufacturers and distributors. Some manufacturers and distributors favor door-to-door sales for several reasons. First, the per unit cost of generating a sale is relatively low. This is because there is no retail store overhead such as rent, salaries, insurance and so forth. Instead a salesman working on a straight commission will use the consumer’s living room to sell his wares and take his orders. Second, the selling price may be several times greater than that which would be obtainable in a more competitive environment where consumers compare different brands of the same product (see, e.g., Vom Lehn v Astor Art Galleries, 86 Misc 2d 1 [1976] [consumers charged $67,000 for carvings worth $14,750]). If, for example, vacuum cleaners were sold exclusively in retail stores with competing brands, then the sale price might be closer to $200 per unit instead of the $1,000 per unit charged consumers during door-to-door sales (see, e.g., Vacuum Cleaners [You can spend more than $1000, but why should you when $200 can buy good performance?], 58 Consumer Reports 2, at 67-72 [Feb. 1993]). Third, consumers [936]*936are less defensive and more comfortable in their own homes and because of this are, especially, susceptible to high pressure sales tactics (see, e.g., State of New York v Stereo Importers, 114 Misc 2d 864 [1982] [absence of opportunity for consumer to carefully consider a purchase]).

Violation of Door-To-Door Sales Protection Act

Because of all of these factors door-to-door sales often lead to abuses, over-reaching, misrepresentations and fraud. As a consequence several States including New York have enacted remedial statutes which, within the limited context of retail sales made in the home, give consumers contractual rescission rights not otherwise available at common law. These statutes, variously known as Door-To-Door Sales Protection Acts (see, e.g., Hollywood Decorators v Lancet, 118 Misc 2d 1096 [1983] [Personal Property Law, art 10-A, §§ 425-431]; Crystal v West & Callahan 328 Md 318, 614 A2d 560 [1992] [Maryland Door-To-Door Sales Protection Act]; Swiss v Williams,

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Bluebook (online)
162 Misc. 2d 932, 618 N.Y.S.2d 182, 1994 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 466, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/rossi-v-21st-century-concepts-inc-nyyonkerscityct-1994.