The History of Lemon Law

The lemon law is a federal law that protects the buyers of defective consumer goods, mainly vehicles. Unfortunately, there are still people who are unaware of this law and who do not know how to get rid of their lemon vehicles. This article will help you get insights into what lemon law is and how it was generated.

The history of lemon law is quite a long one. Everything began in the year of 1906, when the Uniform Sales Act was implemented. This act aimed to combine all the commerce laws under a single one. Thus, the Act of 1906 ensured the U.S. consumers’ protection against deceitful business practices.

In 1914 the Federal Trade Commission was created. It provided consumers with further protection against unscrupulous businessmen and their unlawful practices.

In 1970 the Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act was established. It aimed to protect the consumers from defective consumer products. And at last, in 1975 The Magnuson-Moss Act or the Federal Lemon Law was passed. On January 4, 1975, President Ford signed the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act into law. The law has been effective since July 4, 1975. This act was co-authored by Warren Magnuson and John Moss.Warren Magnusson was a U.S. senator. He put lots of efforts on the realization of different consumer protection laws. John Moss served in the House of Representatives in U.S. He was also the co-author of the Consumer Product Safety Act.

The long history of lemon law helped to now have a good consumer protection law that serves all the U.S citizens. The federal lemon law has its variants in different states. In 1982 Connecticut was the first state to sign a car-specific lemon law. In 1983 California passed the lemon law. It should be noted that California lemon law is considered to be one of the most consumer friendly lemon laws in the U.S. The last state to pass the Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act was Alaska (1994). Thus, all the U.S. states have some kind of lemon law.

When having a lemon vehicle, it is advised that the owner turns to an experienced lemon law attorney. One must look for a lemon lawyer in his/her own state as local lawyers know all the ins and outs of the law in that state. Lemon lawyers usually work on a contingency fee basis; this means that the customers do not have to pay costly attorney’s fees; the money will be paid by the manufacturer only after the case is won by the attorney.