You are the acting catering manager of BigBiz's food services division. You have entered into a catering service agreement with Slick Seminars, Inc. to supply banquet and setup services in an events room on your premises in Louisville, Kentucky. The event was a presentation to potential purchasers of a personal coaching program. This is the first event for which you are responsible, so you want everything to be perfect (which it never is). BigBiz supplies the banquet room, tables, chairs, decorations, setup and cleanup, servers and security. The food is served at table by your wait staff. The services arrangement was negotiated and reduced to writing on BigBiz's standard form contract. The contract was delivered to the client's authorized representative for review and signing by the client's president. As it turns out, a signed contract was not returned. However, The client sent a check for $24,000, a deposit of half of the total charges. The balance of $24,000 was to be paid at the end of the event. You charged $40 per attendee with a guarantee of 120 meals to be served. The charge included the rent of the hall, set up, clean up, the food, the beverages, and all personal services. You continued to coordinate the client's requirements in weeks leading up to the event. On the scheduled date of the event, your team had furnished the room with chairs and tables with tablecloths and utensil setups. The space was decorated to the client's specifications with a podium and small sound stage at the front of the room. The presentation was scheduled to begin at 4:30 p.m. By 2:30, a partial service and security staff was on premises. Coffee, tea, soft drink and bottled water and snack service were set up. There was no kitchen on premises so hot and cold food items prepared in BigBiz's commissary in Sellersburg, Indiana, were on delivery trucks scheduled to arrive and be served according to the client's schedule. A team of the client's employees, including the company president, showed up at 3:00 p.m. They complimented you on the room and preparations and began greeting attendees as they arrived between 3:30 and 4:00 p.m. The presentation began at 4:30. A full course hot dinner was scheduled to be served at 6:00 p.m. No alcohol would be served. According to Slick's promotional material, the meal was an inducement to attend. Most of the approximately 100 attendees appeared to be financially well off middle-aged to elderly couples. They had paid $50 apiece to attend. By 5:30, the guests began to show signs of impatience and several looked around for indications of the meal to be served. Your trucks should have arrived by now and you started to panic. You had not heard from the delivery crew or the commissary. Your cell phone rang. A wreck on I-65 had stopped all southbound traffic and your vehicles were nowhere near an exit. They never arrive. You tell this to the client's president who reluctantly announces to the guests they will not be getting a meal. Predictably, they are unhappy, demand a refund, and walk out. Slick Seminars sues BigBiz for breach of contract. They want their deposit returned plus $5000 for the refunds to the attendees. They had estimated they would sign up 25 attendees for a course in professional coaching, at $500 per course, plus $10,000 in gross sales of books and DVDs at the seminar. Also, they discover that you do not have a food service permit in Kentucky. Kentucky views a catering business as a food service establishment. This requires you to adhere to the state's food permit and food safety guidelines. They claim the absence of a permit renders your contract void and unenforceable. However, you do have a food service permit in Indiana, where the food was prepared.

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In this scenario there are several legal and logistical issues to address Lets break them down and consider how BigBiz should respond Breach of Contra... View the full answer