Caveat emptor Judge Benjamin N. Cardozo established that privity of duty is no longer required in regard to a lawsuit for product liability against the seller. This case is widely regarded as the origin of "caveat venditor" as it pertains to modern tort law in US. "Caveat lector" is Latin for "let the reader beware". One variant of this phrase is "caveat auditor", where the caveat is addressed to any receiver of a given (kind of) message (not necessarily a written one). Caveat emptor Caveat emptor (, ) is Latin for "Let the buyer beware" (from "caveat", "may he beware", a subjunctive
Caveat emptor defects or otherwise made material misrepresentations amounting to fraud. Before statutory law, the buyer had no express warranty ensuring the quality of goods. In the UK, common law requires that goods must be "fit for the particular purpose" and of "merchantable quality", per Section 15 of the Sale of Goods Act but this implied warranty can be difficult to enforce and may not apply to all products. Hence, buyers are still advised to be cautious. The modern trend in the U.S. is that the implied warranty of fitness for a particular purpose applies in the real-estate context to only the