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Chan is a relatively new owner of a large strawberry farm. He wants to move back from the countryside to the city to start up a small grocery store so his children can be close to their schools. One afternoon Peter comes to see Chan’s farm as Peter is interested in purchasing some farm land to expand his cattle business. Peter asks Chan how many cattle Chan thinks Peter can graze on the land. Chan says about 5000 cattle. Based on this assessment Peter agrees to buy the land from Chan and they both sign the contract for sale of the farm. After a year of installing sheds and other cattle farming equipment, Peter transports his cattle to the farm and realizes it can only hold 3000 cattle. Peter comes to you and asks you whether he can sue Chan. (a) Advise Peter whether he can sue Chan.! ! Chan owns a strawberry farm. One day, Petter comes and wants to purchase the land from Chan as he is told by Chan that about 5000 cattle can graze on the land. Therefore, they both agree to sign the contract for the sale of the farm. However, Petter discovers that only 3000 castle can be held in the farm after one year. Petter would see whether he can sue Chan.! ! If there are vitiating factors, the contracts could be invalid. 5 Vitiating factors include misrepresentation, mistake, duress, undue influence and illegality. A misrepresentation is a false statement of a material fact made by one party to another before or at the time contract is made which aims at including that party to enter into a contract. The legal issue is that whether Chan gives Petter misrepresentation to induce the Petter to sign the contract for purchasing the farm. There are 4 elements needed for misrepresentation. First, the statement is false. The statement in the contract signed by Petter is false. The farm can only hold 3000 cattle instead of 5000 cattle. Second, the statement is material to the contract. The statement which the firm can hold 5000 castle is material to the contract. Third, the statement induced the represent to enter into the contract. Petter is willing to sign the contract for buying the firm because Chan claims that 5000 cattle can be held. However, the statement which 5000 castle can be held in the farm is not a statement of fact. It is only a statement of opinion. As Chan is a relatively new owner of a large strawberry farm, he mainly plants the strawberries in the farm and the land has never been used for cattle farming by Chan. Therefore, he may not know the actual capacity of the farm. He makes a statement of opinion not a false statement of fact to induce Petter to sign the contract.! ! A similar case is Bisset v. Wilkinson. Wilkinson signed a contract for buying the farmland from Bisset who had never carried on sheep-farming as Bisset told him that the land could raise 2000 sheep. However, it turned that the land could not hold 2000 sheep. Since Bisset is not familiar with sheep-farming, he did not make an actionable misrepresentation. Statement of opinion was made.! ! In conclusion, base on the fact that one element for misrepresentation is missing in

this case, and the past decision held by the court in Bisset v. Wilkinson, under the fact that statement of opinion is actually made, Chan does not make misrepresentation. Therefore, Chan cannot be sued and the contract is valid....