Capstone

Capstone: the Harrowgate brewery

Harrowgate Brewing is an invented small brewery run by Ms Nell Aldous. Three things have gone wrong. First, Tarn Steelworks agreed in March to supply a 5,000-litre fermentation tank for 48,000, to be delivered by 1 June. In the specification email Ms Aldous told Tarn that the tank was for a seasonal beer, ‘Midsummer Ale’, to be supplied under a contract with a supermarket chain, Orrin Stores, that depended on brewing starting in June. The tank arrived on 15 August, ten weeks late, and has a flaw in its internal coating that Tarn says it will repair for 6,000, though a surveyor says the tank works safely and the flaw affects only appearance and cleaning time. From 1 July a similar tank could have been hired nearby for 600 a week; Harrowgate did not hire one until 1 August, when it hired one for the last two weeks of the delay. Its accounts for the previous three seasons show profit of about 2,000 a week from the Midsummer Ale, and Orrin Stores cut its order by the shortfall. Second, in May a brewer, Mr Dunmore, left Harrowgate for a rival, Brightwater Ales, and in July Brightwater launched ‘Midsummer Gold’, apparently using Harrowgate’s confidential recipe. Brightwater is selling heavily this season and has made about 30,000 profit so far; Harrowgate has lost about 3,000 in sales. Third, Harrowgate paid 12,000 to a label printer, Pennant Print, for custom labels. The contract said the deposit was to be used only to buy the label stock. Pennant never delivered and has gone into liquidation. Ms Aldous is angry and wants ‘everyone to pay’. You are the lawyer. Everything is invented. Use the tools of the course to plan, and write a short plan for the client.

General education on civil remedies, using invented cases, businesses and people. It states common principles in simplified form and does not describe any one country's law, which differs and changes; rules on damages, punitive damages, costs, limitation periods and enforcement in particular vary. It is not legal advice, and it does not replace the instruction of a law school or advice from a qualified lawyer.