The Origin of “Lemon Law” is Murky
New York November 8th, 2008When I set out to discover where the term “lemon law” originated, I figured it would be a breeze. As it turns out, it’s tough to pinpoint who first used the term. But let’s start by going back to the point when “lemon” took on a meaning other than that of a citrus fruit.
According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, in 1906 the term “lemon” was British slang for “to pass off a sub-standard article as a good one.” In 1908 America, “a pool hall hustle was called a ‘lemon game,’” and in 1909 a lemon was known as a “worthless thing.”
Fast forward to 1982, when Connecticut State Representative John J. Woodcock III successfully passed the first lemon law in the nation. According to his lemon law records, housed at Central Connecticut State University, New London resident Dan Brochu “paid $6500 for an Oldsmobile Omega that, he said, ‘turned out to be a classic lemon.’” The narrative continues, saying “When Brochu took his protest to the state capitol, another dissatisfied owner, Thomas F. Ziemba accompanied him. Ziemba flew his Cessna over the building trailing a banner that read, ‘My ‘82 Chevy is one reason Conn. needs a lemon law.’”
The term was already in use by that time, if only because California had attempted - and failed - to pass a lemon law in 1980. But go back a bit further in time, and it should come as no surprise that the uber-advocate, Ralph Nader, published a book in 1971 titled, “What to do with Your Bad Car: An Action Manual for Lemon Owners.” Prior to that, the trail goes cold.
Link to LemonJustice Blog
November 12th, 2008 at 11:20 am
Thaks for your e-mail. You have an interesting site. I recall growing up in the 1960’s that the term “Lemon” became popular about mid-decade. I seem to recall that Time or Newsweek did cover articles on the subject. At the time, the only vehicles for sale in the US were largely US-made, and were built of indifferent quality. Cars made on Mondays and Fridays were notoriously bad, as the Monday cars were made by hung-over workers and the Friday cars by folks wanting to leave for the weekend. Bored workers would sabatoge cars (putting empty coke bottles in the doors so they would rattle, for example). When I worked at GM in the 1970’s, I saw this sort of thing firsthand. If you research this, I think you’ll find the term becoming popular in the 1960’s time period - when cars were cheap and the “big 3″ had a monopoly on the market. See also John Delorean’s “On a clear day you can see General Motors” where he describes the “kit cars” sent to dealers - cars with parts missing from the line (and tossed in the back seat) for the dealer to deal with once delivered.
January 1st, 2009 at 4:31 am
Economist George Akerlof examined the market of lemons in his notable paper: “The Market for Lemons: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism”, published in Quarterly Journal of Economics in 1970, in which he identified the severe lemon problems that may afflict markets characterized by asymmetrical information. He eventually received a Nobel Prize for the broad applications of the theory in this paper.