B.C. tribunal resolves dispute over consigned wedding dress

A woman wears a dress at the Grand Oriental Wedding Show, in Paris, on Saturday, Oct. 31, 2015. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

A woman who consigned her wedding dress to a Victoria-based gown shop and asked for it back years later has won a small claims case after the business did not return the dress.

Stephanie Jeanne Poole gave her dress to Lily Kennedy Custom Gowns in July of 2019, and the parties agreed to list the dress for $600, according to a B.C. Civil Resolution Tribunal decision issued last week.

Poole claimed $600 for the dress after it did not sell and LKCG didn’t return it, despite repeated requests. The gown shop argued that because Poole left the dress with them for more than three years, she had abandoned it and they were not responsible for her property.

According to the decision, Poole messaged LKCG about to ask about the dress in April 2022, and was informed the business closed during the covid pandemic but they still had the garment and were willing to sell it.

Poole inquired again in July 2023, asking to pick up the dress since she was going to move away.

“LKCG said they had put the dress into storage, and would need to try and find it. Mrs. Poole followed up over the next several months, but LKCG did not reply,” the decision reads.

In October of that year, LKCG told Poole they could retrieve the dress from storage by the end of the month, and she reached out to ask again in February 2024.

“At this point, LKCG told her that ‘legally’ after 180 days without contact or pick up, the dress was considered abandoned. The parties continued to exchange messages until June 2024, after which Mrs. Poole applied for dispute-resolution,” the decision reads.

At some point during the parties’ communications, the dress shop referenced a contract created after the pandemic which required a consignee to contact them within a year to decide whether to continue or terminate the sale, and that upon termination the consignee must pick up their items within 60 days or lose rights to them.

However, tribunal member Megan Stewart found that Poole did not sign such a contact and the parties’ oral agreement didn’t include a rule about when to check in or pick up the dress.

“There is no evidence LKCG ever asked Mrs. Poole to come and collect the dress. Given this, LKCG’s closure during the pandemic, and their acknowledgment that they still had Mrs. Poole’s dress and were willing to sell it for her when she contacted them in April 2022, I find Mrs. Poole did not abandon her dress,” Stewart wrote.

The tribunal member instead found that LKCG, as a consignor was legally a bailee for reward, and thus had a responsibility to keep the property safe.

“I find LKCG did not take proper care of Mrs. Poole’s consigned wedding dress. Specifically, I find LKCG probably misplaced or lost the dress, since they failed to return it for months after Mrs. Poole asked to collect it,” Stewart wrote.

However, the decision says Poole didn’t provide any evidence the dress was worth $600, and Stewart found she would have been given only part of the dress’ sale price anyway. Based on LKCG’s contract, which says a consignee gets 40 per cent of an item’s sale price, Stewart ruled Poole was entitled to $240.

In total, the tribunal ordered LKCG to pay Poole $415, or $240 in damages plus $175 in CRT fees.