Bristol County Court grants £180 chair refund despite unused-and-unassembled return terms

The County Court in Bristol, sitting in a small claims setting, granted Leah Pritchard a £180 refund from Alder Finch Furnishings Ltd in exchange for returning a desk chair. It rejected her additional £100 claim for stress, giving her only part of the relief sought.

The dispute centred on what a seven-day home comfort promise actually allowed. Pritchard said she could not assess the chair without assembling it and sitting on it; the shop relied on receipt terms requiring returned items to remain unused and unassembled.

The decisive point was the shop’s acknowledgment that its advert promised a seven-day comfort return without visibly stating the restriction. Although the advert screenshot was not presented as an exhibit, that acknowledgment supported the existence of the promise.

The receipt reliably established both the £180 price and the printed return condition. But it did not explain how a buyer could test comfort at home while leaving the chair untouched. Applying the recorded principle that specific consumer promises must be honoured, the court treated the offer as a meaningful opportunity to return the chair, rather than merely an opportunity to return an unopened item.

The judgment did not disregard the receipt. Instead, it found no clear disclosure establishing that its restriction limited the advertised promise. The issue was not simply whether assembly occurred, but whether assembly put the chair outside the promised comfort return.

Pritchard’s account of permission from customer support appeared only in submissions, not in a produced message or admitted witness testimony. The court did not independently verify that conversation, and its decision did not depend on doing so.

The refund matched the documented purchase price and required the chair’s return. The stress claim lacked evidence of a separate compensable loss or a reliable calculation. No further amount, interest or costs was awarded.

Pritchard said she saw the comfort-return advert before buying, asked support on the purchase day whether she could assemble the chair, and was told a brief comfort check was acceptable. She said she tried it for one evening and requested a return two days after purchase.

Alder Finch argued that the receipt condition still mattered even though Pritchard had not read it before taking the chair home. It accepted that the advert did not visibly mention the restriction and that the receipt alone neither proved a breach nor resolved the conflict between the two documents.

The shop sought refusal or reduction of the refund only if the court found that the written condition fairly limited the promise. It also opposed the additional £100 as unsupported.

The purchase concerned a £180 desk chair bought at the shop in Bristol. Although the preparatory case material listed an advert screenshot and support-message thread, the formal judgment recorded that neither was included in the evidence presented; the receipt was the documentary exhibit.

The ruling resolves this particular conflict between the acknowledged comfort promise and the receipt restriction. It does not verify the support conversation or establish that every assembled chair must qualify for a return.