How can you order a farmer to destroy their trees? I hope he fights in a higher court. Wish I’d heard about the nectarine giveaway. I’d have gone to pick some.
How can you order a farmer to destroy their trees? I hope he fights in a higher court. Wish I’d heard about the nectarine giveaway. I’d have gone to pick some.
They should have been obligated to purchase all of the crop produced to match the restriction on who he could sell to.
That’s the gotcha. It’s exactly how the judge should have ruled, but that’s what common sense would say, and contract law doesn’t require the contract to adhere to any kind of common sense.
It’s the kind of hole in a contract I’d have expected any competent contract attorney to catch, but perhaps the farmer didn’t use one, which is unfortunate.
Business to business contracts isn’t like consumer contracts, if it’s not in the contract there’s very little protect you
The farmer, or rather his lawyer, didn’t think ahead enough to get that in the contract. Any experienced futures lawyer would have made sure of it.
Hopefully the guy has crop insurance. Or the court rules to make the company pay to cut the trees down. Ideally also gets him some extra money to get a new crop going.
No, he’ll never farm again. All the fruit he would have grown for people, is gone forever, thanks to this scumbag company.
I mean, scumbag licensing terms, yeah, but also why did he agree to them?! It’s like someone advertising a free kick in the nuts, saying “sure, lemme get that”, and then calling them a scumbag for kicking you in the nuts.
Likely a clash of cultures. Farming traditionally has a reputation aspect. They often rely on each other to deal with problems quickly. A handshake deal “of course we will buy your full crop” is almost sacrosanct between farmers. To a big company however, the contract is all. If it’s not in the contract it never has any meaning.
Unfortunately, the law is geared to the contract. Also, companies are expected to do their own due diligence. They can put whatever terms they want in a contract. Consumer protection is intended for when consumers can’t get every contract read through by a lawyer. It just doesn’t apply to business-to-business deals.