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Introduction:

Alan works as an accountant in charge for the
Melbourne based company Natural Therapies
Practice. By considering his quality of service a natural
health product supplying company named Wellness
Pty Ltd had offered a part time job to Alan as the
companys naturopath. While taking into
consideration their offer Alan decided to purchase
some new computer software to facilitate the growth
and speed of his business for which he went to a local
shop named Health Solution Software Pty Ltd.

Further
There he met the sales assistant Betty, who convinced
Alan to purchase XY Software Package at $ 10,000 after
giving discount of $ 500 despite of knowing the fact
that the software had received complaints from
customers earlier, for she had to meet the sales target
for that month. When Alan started to use the software
in his day to day business after few days it began to
receive complaints from the customers as it would take
more time to deliver the required medicines. Due to
this reason subsequently Wellness Pty Ltd also
decided to offer the job of naturopath to someone else.

Continued
Now, furious Alan decided to sue Health Solution
Software Pty Ltd for his loss in business, future
opportunity of employment and for the amount he
spent on buying the software.

Task 1
When the XY Software Package began to receive negative
feedback from the customers of Natural Therapies Practice
and owing to which Alan had to lose his opportunity of
employment with Wellness Pty Ltd, he decided to demand
for compensations from Health Solution Software Pty Ltd
in the court of law. But to establish his demand in legal
ground at the first place Alan has to verify that he holds a
valid contract with Health Solution Pty Ltd in absence of
which he cant claim his compensations. To determine
whether Alan had a legitimate contract with the Health
Solution Software or not we shall discuss the structure of
the business the software company follows and reach to a
convincing conclusion (Donnelly, 2011).

Continued
When the XY Software Package began to receive negative
feedback from the customers of Natural Therapies Practice
and owing to which Alan had to lose his opportunity of
employment with Wellness Pty Ltd, he decided to demand
for compensations from Health Solution Software Pty Ltd
in the court of law. But to establish his demand in legal
ground at the first place Alan has to verify that he holds a
valid contract with Health Solution Pty Ltd in absence of
which he cant claim his compensations. To determine
whether Alan had a legitimate contract with the Health
Solution Software or not we shall discuss the structure of
the business the software company follows and reach to a
convincing conclusion (Donnelly, 2011).

What happened in this particular case was that Health Solution
Software runs on an invitation to treat structure as customers can visit
the shop to make their selection by themselves and purchase the
product. However, like any other shop of this kind it also had sales
assistants to help customers to make their choices.

When Alan arrived in the shop he had no idea about what software
should be purchase that would be appropriate for his business. Thus,
he took help of Betty, the sales assistant and explained that he needed
computer software that would help him to keep hold of the drug
prescription records of the customers from countrys health
department so that he would be able to prescribe the correct natural
remedy for them. Betty offered him XY Software Package and Alan
purchased the product by signing a purchase contract where the
amount of money he had paid was mentioned (Broom, 2007).

Thus following the invitation to treat structure of
business Alan certainly holds a valid contract which
makes him liable to bring a case of compensation
against Health Solution Software Pty Ltd.


Task 2 Legal rights and remedies:

When the validity of contract has been established now the
areas of disputes related to the contract should be analyzed
at the first place to decide the remedies and legal rights
available for Alan.
When Alan reached the shop to buy the software he made
clear at the very first place what his requirements were
based on which Betty recommended him the XY Software
Package and stated that I highly recommend the XY
Software package, priced at $10,500, because I believe that
it will do the job well in spite of the fact that she knew very
well that the software had already received negative
feedbacks from the customers. The software package had
complaints of breaking down during operations and didnt
offer timely access to patients files.

Under section 18 of Part 2 of Contract Law the
statements of Betty made her guilty of misleading or
deceptive conduct as she made a falsified
representation with respect to the future matter of
doing of operation by the software. Also, under section
4 of the law this act of Betty made her accountable for
this legally shaky contract as she had no reasonable
ground for making the representation (Cohen and Mc
Kendrick, 2009). However, her obligation to meet the
sales target of the month doesnt qualify as a
reasonable basis for selling the disputed product to
Alan.

Now, in this situation as per the Australian Contract Law
certain legal rights are available to Alan based on section 54
as the software package sold by Health Solution Software
failed to live up to the quality as described by the sales
assistant. The software could not serve the purpose of his
requirement and was not free from defects which made the
product to breach consumers guarantee as codified in the
Contract Law (Astley v Austrust Limited, 2000). As per the
law any product made for sale should be cleared to the
customer before he makes his purchase decision to
determine whether the product is of acceptable quality or
not. In this particular case Health Solution Software didnt
maintain this principle and thus Alan is allowed to lodge a
legal case against them as per the law (Laborde, 2011).

Also, under section 29 of chapter 3 division 1, Betty is
liable of making a misleading representation of the
software package in respect of its standard, quality and
previous use and also under section 33 for she made a
false representation about the characteristics and
suitability of purpose for the software package to Alan
as when he installed the computer software at his store
it didnt give him access to the records of the Health
Department at all, which was his sole requirement for
the purchase as he had stated at the very first stage to
Betty (Elliott, 2001).

Also, under section 56 the Health Solution Software is found to
be guilty as it failed to supply a quality product as per the
description. When Alan stated to Betty that he categorically
needs a computer software package that provides him access to
the drug prescription records of the customers from the Health
Department he made it very clear what his requirements were
(Stein, 1993, pp. 439-452). Despite of that Betty recommended
him a product which failed to perform the task.
Therefore, in view of the above mentioned discussion it is now
clear that Health Solution Software is certainly guilty of the
charges of misleading representation of the product and for that
reason certain remedies are available at the disposal of Alan by
the court of law to get the compensation for his damages.

According to the nature of the contract made between Alan and the
software company no liquidated damages can be applicable in this
situation as the contract of purchase doesnt hold any clause that
describes a particular sum of money to be submitted by the involving
parties upon breach of contract (Broom, 2007). Thus, Alan can get
damage compensation for the breach of contract which is also
commonly viewed by the court as substitute for performance.
However, as per the legal provisions the claims for damages must not
be too remote from the actual breach. That means, not the three areas
of compensations can be granted to Alan based on the nature of the
breach (Elliott, 2001). The $ 10,000 paid by him to purchase the
software and $ 150,000 amount of business he had to lose due to the
lack of performance of the software could be claimed but $ 100,000 he
expected to earn after joining Wellness Pty Ltd as naturopath could not
be legally approved to claim from Health Solution Software as this
aspect of damage is too remote from the actual damage made by them.

Conclusion
Thus, Alan had a valid contract with the Health Solution
Software at the time of his purchase which makes him
permissible to ask for compensation when the software package
couldnt perform the desired task as guaranteed by the sales
assistant. The Contract Law provides him the legal rights to
claim his damage compensations from the breaching company
and get return of the amount he had to lose while purchasing the
product for $ 10,000 and loss in business he had to face as the
customers became irritated with the delay in their service and
switched on to other companies. It is due to the misleading
representation of the product by the Health Solution Software
that Alan had to face the negative consequences. But as
described in the above section, through applying his legal rights
under Australian Contract Law Alan could retain a significant
amount of the losses he had to face.