FACTS La Trattoria, the catering business owned by Joe and Alison in the previous Business Law assignment, has now been in operation for two years and has earned a good reputation in the food hospitality industry, much to the envy of some of its competitors, including the Metropolitan Hotel, where Joe and Alison used to work. Barry, the manager of the Metropolitan Hotel often looked at La Trattoria's web site, and checking out their menu and advertising. On the La Trattoria web site was the following advertisement: La Trattoria Traditional Northern Italian Cuisine Authentic Home-made Dishes Original Family Recipes Handed Down Through Generations Always on the lookout for something to complain about, Barry wrote to La Trattoria insisting that their advertisement is misleading to consumers because he knows that Joe and Alison do not prepare the food they supply to their customers themselves, so they should not be referring to their dishes as \"home-made\". Furthermore, that since neither Joe nor Alison are of Northern Italian descent, it is blatantly false for them to assert that their recipes are from Northern Italy, \"original" or from past generations. When he received Barry's letter Joe then sent Barry a letter in which he responded as follows: Dear Barty While we are not obliged to address your concerns about our advertising we would like to clear up any misunderstandings that you seem to have regarding our cuisine. First, we assure you that all our dishes are prepared in the homes of families to whom we outsource our cooking, so they are \"home-made\". Second, since all the families are of Northern ltalian origin and the recipes they use have been \"handed down\" in those families, we are entitled to make this claim in our advertising. We trust that we shall hear no more complaints from you about this matter. Regards Joe Joe soon forgot about Barry's complaint and focussed his attention on other business matters including the need to purchase another van for the business. Joe saw an advertisement on the \"Val's Vans\" web site for the sale of a 2010 Toyota van for $10,000. He immediately contacted \"Val's\" to arrange an inspection on Saturday morning. After inspecting the van on Saturday Joe offered Val $8,500 for it. However, Val said that \"The price was already heavily discounted\" and that \"She couldn't let it go for anything less than $9,500". Joe said: "OK I'm denitely interested, but can you please give me until the close of business on Monday to let you know whether I can afford it or not?\" Val assured Joe that she would not sell the van to anyone else before then. On Monday morning Joe telephoned "Val's Van's" to tell them that he had decided to buy the van for $9,500. Val's assistant, Tom, answered the phone and informed Joe that Val had already sold the van just before closing on Saturday afternoon, to a man called Barry, who claimed to be a manager of the Metropolitan Hotel and that he paid $10,000 cash for it. Joe was extremely angry and insisted that Val had to sell the van to him. Joe is now threatening to take legal action against Val for breach of contract. More recently, Simon, the curator of Gold Leaf Art Gallery, telephoned La Trattoria and left a message on their answering machine in which he inquired about how much La Trattoria would charge to cater for a special exhibition he was holding at his gallery later that month, to be attended by some high-prole guests. On July 10 Alison wrote to Simon quoting a total price of $2,000 to cater for the event, which included all the necessary food and drinks. When he received this letter on July 12 Simon was pleased with the price quoted by La Trattoria, and on that same day posted a letter at the post ofce accepting the quotation of $2,000. However, after reviewing the price that she had quoted Simon, Alison realised that she had made a mistake and that La Trattoria could not afford to cater for the event for $2,000 as they would make a significant financial loss at this price. Therefore, also on July 12, Alison posted a letter to Simon in which she wrote: "We regret to inform you that we are now unable to provide the catering for your exhibition for $2,000. However, we are prepared to cater for your exhibition for a cost of $2,800. We apologise for any inconvenience and look forward to hearing from you soon to finalise the details." When Simon received this letter on July 14 he telephoned La Trattoria and insisted to Alison that the price of $2,000 was already confirmed. However Alison informed him that she had only just received his letter of confirmation that morning, which was too late since she had already changed their original quote from $2,000 to $2,800, as she had explained to him in her letter of July 12