Tuesday February 3, 09:47 AM

Brazil shop fined for neglecting client's TV needs

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - A Brazilian judge fined the Latin American country's biggest furniture retailer $2,600 (1,820 pounds) for failing to repair a TV set, saying it deprived the owner of an "essential good" to watch football and Brazil's Big Brother.

The customer said he asked the Casas Bahia store to repair the set he bought there but it did not or would not do this, legal affairs website Ultima Instancia reported this week.

"In modern life, you cannot deny that a television set, present in almost all homes, is considered an essential good," the judge said in summing up his order for the store to compensate the customer for "moral damages."

"Without it, how can the owner watch the beautiful women on Big Brother, the news or (football)," the judge quipped.

Brazilians are fervent football fans and are currently settling into the ninth series of the local edition of reality TV show Big Brother. Brazil's famed 'telenovela' soap operas stop conversation in many homes for an hour a day year-round.

(Reporting by Peter Murphy)