Question
Bernard, a farmer, was interested to purchase a piece of land for planting banana trees. He was able to reach a potential seller Samson via
Bernard, a farmer, was interested to purchase a piece of land for planting banana trees. He was able to reach a potential seller Samson via the internet. Samson possessed a piece of farmland in the New Territory which was passed from his father and was previously used for growing vegetables. Samson was a driver and had not worked in farming as his father did. The farmland had never been used for planting any fruit trees before and was abandoned for some time, and neither did Samson have any experience or knowledge of planting fruit trees. Bernard was well informed about all such information during their negotiation. One day, Bernard was invited by Samson to visit the farmland and was impressed by its fertile soil. However, Bernard was concerned about the capacity of the farmland and sought Samson's opinion on how many banana trees the farmland could plant. Samson genuinely said that he thought the farmland could plant around 800 banana trees in his best estimation. Relying on this statement, Bernard purchased the farmland. However, after Bernard started to plant banana trees for some time, he found that the capacity of the farmland for planting banana trees was much less than 800. He therefore intended to sue Samson and claim for compensation. On 2 January, Bernard had contracted with a logistic company named Instant Courier Limited (ICL) to deliver a large quantity of harvested bananas to a food fair on 1 May. However, three weeks before the contracted delivery day of 1 May, ICL informed Bernard that as all their delivery trucks were being deployed to work for an urgent project for one of their VIP clients these few weeks, they could no longer arrange the delivery for Bernard and thus wish to cancel the proposed delivery.
Discuss whether Bernard can claim damages from Samson on the ground of misrepresentation. Please cite a relevant case to support your answer but do NOT need to discuss the different types of misrepresentation.
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