Sarah was the owner of a dairy farm in the Bay of Plenty for more than 10 years. There was a herd of 200 cows on the farm, and on average the cows produced 50,000 litres of milk annually. However, the farm, even in prime conditions, was too small to carry 200 cows. Sarah managed to keep that number of cows and achieved the production level because she often grazed her cows (let cows eat the grass) on the adjacent farm which belonged to her brother. In the last couple of years, Sarah has been in ill health and moved away from the farm. She hired a fulltime farm manager to do the work. The manager was a fraudster. In the two years, he only applied a small amount of fertilizer on the farm, sold the rest of the fertilizer and stole the money. But he filled in the Farm Management Plan so as to show that an adequate amount of fertilizer was applied each year in the two years. Sarah was not aware of the fraud.In April 2016, Sarah put the farm (excluding the cows) on the market.

After making a lot of money as a commercial lawyer, Bernard retired in March 2016 at the age of 55. In his search for something to do during his idle retirement, he inexplicably took a liking to cows and dairy farming even though he had no experience with dairy farming and his legal practice had nothing to do with the farming business. Bernard contacted Sarah to start negotiations. One email sent by Sarah to Bernard had the Farm Management Plan attached. The email also said that "Under my good management, the farm carried 200 cows in the last 10 years and on average they produced 50,000 litres of milk annually." The email did not say anything about the fact that the cows were often grazed elsewhere.

In response to that email, Bernard emailed back: "I am happy with the capacity and production level of the farm. I have also read the attached plan, and am happy with it.However, you have indicated that you want a settlement date toward the end of May. That will not give me enough time to buy cows for the farm." Sarah emailed back saying "I will lease my cows to you for one milking season. I am sure we can reach some sort of agreement regarding that". A friend of Bernard's heard about the negotiations and suggested to Bernard: "You'd better hire a dairy farming consultant to check it out. It will cost you only about 1000 dollars". Bernard rejected the suggestion saying: "I do not mind the cost.But I'd rather spend the money buying a cow than buying a consultant or, speaking more precisely, buying a few hours of his time."

In late April 2016, Bernard signed the contract to buy the farm for one million dollars. The transaction was settled on 23 May 2016. In the days since then, Bernard has been on a "steep learning curve". He has learnt: the farm, as a matter of fact, can carry only 150 cows; the pasture on the farm is of poor quality due to lack of adequate fertilizing in the past two years and will take one year to recover. Because of his "new knowledge" about the farm, Bernard insisted that Sarah lease her cows to him for free. Sarah insisted that Bernard pay market rent. Due to the dispute, Sarah now refuses to lease the cows to Bernard and has signed a contract to sell the cows to somebody else.

Discuss whether Bernard can establish a claim under the CCLA against Sarah, and why