Legal Question in Business Law in California

delay of order

i ordered an agriculture machine from a californian dealer. he ordered it from texas from the factory. we were given a date to pay the amount 5th august . we got delayed bye few days . i communicated with the factory with full knowledge of the local dealer and we were given one more week ending on a friday 12th august. i called the factory a day in advance on thursday 11th telling them the money was available.i was told the machine was sold and i would have to wait 12 more days. no apologies no , nothing was offered.as a result of that the ship sailed off and my clients in africa did not recieve their cargo until after 45 days from date planned. they missed the harvesting season and will wait 6 months for the next harvest.i lost future orders from my clients as they are blaming me. can i sue the factory or the dealer.what will i need to prove my losses.


Asked on 10/03/05, 9:23 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys

Edward Hoffman Law Offices of Edward A. Hoffman

Re: delay of order

You will need to show that the seller knew or reasonably should have known that your order was time-sensitive and that, if he missed a particular delivery deadline, you would lose business as a result. You will also have to prove the amount of business you claim to have lost, which may be hard to do unless these were established customers with a consistent history of doing business with you. *And* you will have to prove that the seller knew or should have known how much business the delay would cost you.

Additionally, you will have to prove that your original purchase agreement remained in effect -- in other words, that it wasn't rescinded as a result of your inability to pay on the original due date. I would need a lot of specifics about who said what to whom before I could evaluate this aspect of your claim. And you will have to prove that the reason you missed the deadline was that the seller delayed rather than your own inability to pay when due.

All of this is on top of the usual issues involved in proving that you had an enforceable contract in the first place and proving that the seller's delay constituted a breach of that contract.

Unless you have additional favorable facts that aren't mentioned in your post, you will have a difficult time proving your case.

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Answered on 10/03/05, 10:15 pm


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