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Caveat
(KAH-vey-aht) "beware"
You may recognize this Latin word from the phrase caveat emptor, meaning "[let the] buyer beware." In law, a caveat is a warning or a notice.
This warning may be court order for a party to refrain from some action; the word may also be placed above the body of a paragraph in some legal documents in order to draw attention to a point of clarification. Additionally, it can serve notice to an officer of the court, requiring him/her to suspend (stop) a proceeding until the opposition has had an opportunity to state their side of a case.
Prior to statutory, or written law, those who purchased goods or services had no assurance of quality. "Caveat emptor" was the only consumer protection available. Later, this became a doctrine that barred a buyer from suing a seller over defects of property that made said property unusable (for example, tainted soil or the existence of a sinkhole). The only exception to this doctrine was if it could be proved that the seller had deliberately concealed such defects.
There are numerous state and community laws that give consumers specific rights and protections. Even in the absence of a specific warranty, most state and local jurisdictions require that most goods sold must meet a standard of "merchantable quality."
Although most jurisdictions do not require mercantile businesses to provide refunds or exchanges, most will at least offer in-store credit as long as the customer has a valid receipt for the purchase.
The rule of caveat emptor in the U.S. dates back to an early U.S. Supreme Court decision, which involved a purchase of a commodity which had a substantially greater value at the time of purchase than the current price - information which was concealed from the seller (Laidlaw v. Organ, 15 US 178 [1817]).