Also known as: passed without objection · passing without objection · passes without objection · no objection raised
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A criterion of merchantability under which goods satisfy the implied warranty of merchantability when knowledgeable buyers in the relevant trade would accept them without complaint when sold under the contract description.
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Premier Manufacturing sold Patricia Patel 5,000 solid state drives described as new 1 TB units for laptop assembly. After integration many drives failed random data writes at a significant rate. Trade buyers of new drives matching that description would reject the batch for unreliable performance.
Prairie Grain Corp sold High Meadow Farms a shipment described as No. 2 yellow feed corn. Laboratory tests confirmed nutritional content and moisture within normal parameters. In the local feed grain trade corn with that level of broken kernels and dust is routinely bought and used without objection.
No. Goods can pass without objection even if they contain minor variations that the trade routinely accepts under the contract description. The standard measures acceptability against ordinary commercial expectations in the relevant trade rather than absolute perfection.
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Pass without objection applies to all goods and focuses on whether the trade would accept them under the contract description. Fair average quality applies only to fungible goods and addresses a separate merchantability element.
…if the seller is a merchant with respect to goods of that kind ... "(2) Goods to be merchantable must be at least such as "(a) Pass without objection in the trade under the contract description; and "(b) In the case of fungible goods, are of fair average quality within the description; and "(c) Are fit for the ordinary purposes for…
…by a merchant, a warranty is implied that the goods will be merchantable. To be merchantable, the goods must be such as would “pass without objection
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No. When goods sold under a specific description demand substantially more preparation or trimming than comparable items in the trade, they fail the pass-without-objection standard even if they remain usable.
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No. Latent defects that appear after ordinary processing or integration can still render goods unmerchantable if knowledgeable buyers in the trade would object to the performance under the contract description.
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Merchantability is judged by trade standards. Goods satisfy the pass-without-objection element when they meet the expectations of knowledgeable buyers in the relevant trade under the contract description, not when they satisfy one buyer's subjective comparison to prior shipments.
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