Facts
Misrepresentation under contract law can be attributed to the false stamen of a material fact that is made by one party which extends its effects to the other engaging party in the contract to come into terms with the contract or agreement under subject. Wens it comes into contract making process it should be mutual, accepted by every party, as well as having a reward. If both parties agree on the terms ad paly their individual parts in the agreement then the contract will be on the right track, however this can be a breach if in any case a party fail to carry out its assigned activity thus causing a breach.
In this particular case , Michael Morgan was able to collect money from her old aunties as an heir, he then found out that Griffins inn was being sold by Jenkins and he was interested to won such a property so he want to check out if he could possibly get to own the property. After having been taking round the inn by Jenkins he settled to a price of 375,000 Euros. Jenkins however had not published the accounting, documents with information which on the other and according to Morgan was a lie or rather false based in terms of how much returns he was getting g yearly.
According to Jenkins in the accounts records within the years of 2018 to date he used to make a profit which was equivalent to 40,000 Euros. However after the ownership of the inn was switched to Morgan, the yearly profit or income was reduced to a whopping 37,000 Euros which was not worth the amount that Morgan had spent on purchasing the inn. So in one way or the other he felt like the financial records that were posed to him by Jenkins were somehow deceiving just to ensure that he bought the property. And this therefore caused the stir and Morgan asking for a refund after he had made losses. He believes that there was a breach of contract as acted upon by Jenkins.
- Consider why there is no claim for breach of the sale and purchase contract against Jenkins
According to the agreement that the claimant had with the vendor in this case, Michael Morgan and Jenkins it can be noted that their agreement only came in term of delivering the property in terms of shifting its ownership from Jenkins to Morgan. Thus the contract that was the main subject matter was the fact that the two were in an agreement to sell the Griffin inn. In no way was there an agreement that the sales which were used to determinate net worth of the inn were also to seal the contract. For a fact what Morgan wanted was the inn and not what the inn would offer in future after it changed ownership as with time may eh was to improve the sales unlike it was performing under Jenkins. There are elements to specifically prove the incident of contract breach.
Liability of Mr Jenkins
They are inclusive of the following: breach duty, breach, loss and causation. In the agreement that Jenkins and Morgan had it was only on the sale of proper which all the parties did take their duties with an utmost of good faith. In no way are the elements above able to be proved as being committed by the defendant to make a breach of contract the main issue. In one way or the other the figures relating to the account sales were mainly to do with a business strategy so as the claimant in this case Morgan could easily get to buy the inn faster, tis therefore may not qualify the fact that after changing ownership and the sales not meeting what was in the records a breach of contract.
Moreover, Morgan as a claimant cannot prove the fact that the profits as put in the sales records are true considering that may be the customers might have moved to other places because Jenkins who originally was running the business is not around anymore. Change in ownership also comes with change and shifts in consumer preferences at that may be was the case which cannot guarantee the fact that in selling the inn and failure to get the profits as stated then it becomes a breach of contract. What expanded in this particular case was just a misrepresentation in order to make sure that the deal that was on the table was sealed.
There is an element of misrepresentation hath took place when the Jenkins used false figures to capture the attention of Michael Morgan to get to buy the inn in a fast way. When Jenkins was selling the inn to Michael Morgan one of the things that he told him was the fact that the business usually derived profit of about 40,000 Euros per annum, tis was therefore one of the reasons as to why Morgan may have decided to buy the inn knowing that he would I no time got to have his investment back. However this was a misrepresentation by the vendor. The elements of misrepresentation involve the following:
- A defendant should have in one way or the other, made a false based representation of either an existing or past material form with respect to susceptible knowledge. Thus in the process of making sure that Morgan had a better understanding of how the inn operated Jenkins brought about a false representation in terms of profits per annum as suggested to be about 40,000 Euros, which turned out of not being the case. As they reduced when Morgan was the owner to 36,000 Euros per annum.
- While making a false representation, the defendant in this case may have done so knowing to a fact that the representation under subject was no true, on the other and the defendant may have done so without the knowledge that the representation was either true or false to a particular extent. In this particular case Jenkins might have been aware or not that the information that he was giving to Morgan might have been true or not. If he knew it was false then he was doing it with the intension to get money from him, without proper regards.
- Moreover, while in his undertaking on the misrepresentation the defendant may have had a gaols to make the claimant act with reliance on the particular presentation. The goal of Jenkins when giving Morgan this particular information was to make sure that he makes him fall for it and give out money in order to have the inn belong to him.So intentionally what Jenkins was trying to achieve was basically to find every way possible that can be used to make Morgan pay the money so as to change the ownership of the inn which he needed up achieving. Therefore, there was the incident of misrepresentation and the elements of the same are in existence as shown.
If in any case Jenkins made the false representation with particular intentions then it may result to fraud. As fraud is an act which is carried out intentionally with deliberate efforts by the defendant to gain at the expense of the claimant losing. Considering the fact that Jenkins through the financial records might have used deception and pressure to obtain the amount of money from Morgan then the incident here can be rendered as fraud with consideration to what the law lays down as elements contributing to fraud. Jenkins in this case is liable for fraud in any case a lawsuit is fled against him by Morgan concerning the return of the Inn.
Misrepresentation Claim – Elements of Claim
The possible defence that Jenkins can pull up in this particular case may be he had different customer’s sales service as compared to those that Morgan is having as far as running the activities of the inn are concerned. He may claim that e had better strategies of running the business and that is why it was possible for him to raise a profit of 40,000 Euros per annum. He may also claim that the strategies used by Morgan to run the Griffin Inn may have contributed to the low sales capacity thus not matching the previous profits that were being experienced. On the other hand he can also put up a claim that the change of ownership of a business does come with reduction or change in customer tastes, may be the clients that were coming in the Griffins inn were used to be around the presence of Jenkins but with him changing the ownership they also looked for the other joints to get what Morgan was giving them in the inn.
According to the tort law, any duty of care which is given to someone is a legal based obligation which is imposed on any individual and requires them to adhere to a particular standard of care reasonably while undertaking any acts that are foreseeable any harm to the others. This is therefore one of the elements that must be established so as to proceed with a particular action which is considered negligence. Thus in this case Jameson is liable for negligence as while preparing the financial records he knew that what he was preparing was false and it was going to result to a loss for Michael Morgan.
Conclusion
In conclusion there is no liability in terms of what is regarded as breach f contract between Jenkins and Morgan considering the fact that they only had agreed to sell the inn. In that case therefore, there is no doubt that even though Jenkins knew that he was giving false information then the contract absurd may not in any case result to breach because only the inn was the one subjected to the agreement and nota all the profits as stated by Morgan during the claim filing process.
Moreover, Jenkins may be liable for fraud as he used false allegation in order to extort money from Michael Morgan. In this sense therefore it can be true to say that knowingly or unknowingly in case Jenkins committed the mistake out of his knowledge then it is also evident that in case a lawsuit is filed against in the he will be liable for the consequences.
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