Renata owns a small manufacturing business. She was looking for a new accountant to prepare her corporate tax return. She needed someone who was familiar with manufacturing businesses, especially how to properly claim capital cost allowances $($CCA$)$ on manufacturing equipment and tax credits for research and development $($R&D$).$ Using her Google search skills, she found the accounting firm Beans & Co$.$ The firm was very positively reviewed on Yelp and Google. The firm is actually just one person, Franz Beans. On the firm's website, it says that Franz is a Certified Professional Accountant with clients in the manufacturing industry. In actual fact, Franz had never passed all of his CPA exams. He has worked for many years as an accountant without a CPA designation.

Franz prepared and filed a corporate tax return for Renata's company. The Canada Revenue Agency rejected many of the claims for CCA deductions and R&D tax credits. Due to the improper claims, CRA assessed penalties and arrears interest of about $$100,000$ against Renata's company. Renata blames Franz for not properly preparing the corporate tax return. She has sued Franz, claiming that her loss was caused by his professional negligence. He has responded by arguing that since he was not really a CPA, he was not really a professional and therefore could not be held to a professional standard of care. He says that an average reasonable person would not have been familiar with the rules for CCA and R&D tax credits.

Was Franz negligent? In other words, did he breach the applicable standard of care? $($Provide a full legal analysis.$)$