Por the holidays, maybe you will buy an old piece of jewelry. If, after having it appraised, you learn that its stones do not have the purity announced, you can obtain the cancellation of the sale, for “substance error”as the following case reminds us.
In 2014, Mr.me X, who needs cash, asks the auction house Christophe Joron-Derem to sell one of his jewels. She explains that he “was mounted at the end of the XIXe century for the Queen of Siam [ancien nom de la Thaïlande] who later sold it to John D. Rockefeller”. Mme X would have acquired it from his daughter, Muriel Rockefeller Hubbard.
The auction house engages the services of two appeal court experts1 of Paris, MM. Y and Z, to present the jewel in its catalog. These gemology graduates describe it as following : « Yellow gold pendant (…)set with a large oval cat’s-eye chrysoberyl cabochon…”. On June 27, 2014, a Belgian company, Gros Diffusion, won the contract for the sum of 39,000 euros. Without waiting for its payment, Joron-Derem agrees to Mme X an advance of 14,000 euros.
6% of hammer price
Alas, after having the jewel appraised by a Swiss laboratory, the Belgian company refuses to pay it: the stone would not be a chrysoberyl… but a quartz, which will be confirmed by a second laboratory, French, requested by the two jewelry experts . However, the difference in value of these two stones is immense: shimmering quartz is relatively common, while cat’s eye chrysoberyl is rare and highly sought after.
In principle, M.me X should agree to cancel the sale, and return the advance to Joron-Derem. But she refuses. The auction house therefore has no choice but to take her to court… even though she is her best client. On November 14, 2019, the Paris tribunal de grande instance pronounced the cancellation of the sale for error on the substance, and sentenced Mme X to repay the 14,000 euros advanced.
The Joron-Derem company is pursuing the procedure, in order to be compensated for the ” mistake “ made by experts. She reproaches MM. Y and Z of being satisfied with an examination of the jewel with the naked eye, whereas, to render their opinion, they took 6% of the hammer price, and they knew that the shimmering quartz and the chrysoberyl cat’s eye are very similar.
The Paris Court of Appeal agrees with him, October 4, 2022. She considers it “without establish the proof” that the experts maintain that they were “impossible to measure the refractive index of the stone, (…) without [la] to serve (…) ». It notes that the French analysis laboratory states that it made this measurement, “the set stone”. She therefore judges that “MM. Y and Z have committed a fault”and “their responsibility must be accepted”.
It orders them to pay 3,000 euros for material damage, which results in particular from the deprivation of sales fees, and 2,000 euros for non-pecuniary damage: the company, it judges, “saw its image depreciated, because the auction of one of the most prestigious lots of its sale was the subject of a legal cancellation for error on the substance”.