Pottery Barn rule

[1] Individually operated furnishing stores selling fragile goods (art, pottery, and sculptures) often post a "you break it, you buy it" sign.

In addition, it is the customer's responsibility to be careful in a premises with many fragile valuable goods; so careless behavior such as an untied shoelace or horsing around can be regarded as negligent.

In actual practice even a civil suit is unlikely if the patron lacks the means to pay, such as damaged artwork in a museum that could be worth millions.

[1] In reality, Pottery Barn, a chain of upscale home furnishing stores in the United States, does not have a "you break it, you bought it" policy,[3] but instead writes off broken merchandise as a loss, as do most large American retailers.

[3] New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman claims to have coined the term, having used the phrase "the pottery store rule" in a February 12, 2003, column.

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry cited the rule and attributed it to Powell in debating Bush on policy on the Iraq war during the first debate of the 2004 Presidential election: KERRY: Secretary of State Colin Powell told this president [Bush] the Pottery Barn rule: If you break it, you fix it.