QUESTION 1:

Johnny has been training a new chef, Sam, in the kitchen of his restaurant. Johnny thinks Sam is almost ready to prepare food for customers. Johnny and Sam arrange for a small group of CDU students and their friends to come to the restaurant one evening, when the restaurant is ordinarily closed, to try Sam's food. Johnny explains to the guests that Sam is being left alone in the kitchen to prepare the meal by himself, without supervision. Sam prepares a delicious threecourse meal for the guests, including a daring and innovative durian pie. Unfortunately, Sam does not peel the durian fruit before putting it in the pie, and the sharp thorns cause three of his guests moderate injury before everybody else realises that the durian pie should be avoided.

(a) Has Sam breached any legal duty of care?

(b) Did Sam owe a lower duty of care to the guests due to inexperience?

(c) Is Johnny vicariously liable for anything that occurred?

QUESTION 2:

The Lame Duck Restaurant owned by Johnny appoints a sales and marketing representative (Summer) to design and launch a new website for the restaurant. Summer is very bright and her design looks amazing. As the website is exceptional, Johnny decides to revamp the pricing system and put a 15% mark-up on all food. Summer develops a beautiful design for the new pricing system and posts it online. Two weeks later after the prices are changed, Li books the wedding using the menu he found on one of the tables. Summer mistakenly accepts the booking, asking Abu from accounts to accept the deposit and finalise the invoice. Li calls, accepts the quoted price, pays the deposit and books the date for the wedding. The same day, Li sends out invitations to all her friends studying at CDU. The day before the banquet, the error in the quotation is discovered. Johnny gets involved, calls the customer and says that the Lame Duck Restaurant cannot host the wedding because the quotation was made in error. However, Li insists that 'we have a contract' and says that under the law the Lame Duck Restaurant must host the wedding banquet.

(d) Advise Johnny, whether the contract exists.

(e) Was there a mistake? If there was, what kind of mistake?

(f) Explain possible legal consequences if the Lame Duck Restaurant is obliged to provide the premises for the wedding, but refuses to do so.