Appellate Law

First District: Justifiable Reliance

By Matt Conigliaro

Those who follow fraudulent and negligent misrepresentation cases should be interested in this decision from the First District. The court held that, because justifiable reliance is not the equivalent of due diligence, “a misrepresenter is precluded from arguing that the recipient of information did not justifiably rely because he or she failed to conduct an adequate independent investigation.”

One might wonder how much of a role the word “adequate” plays in that statement. The answer may come later in the opinion, where the court held that if the recipient of false information does undertake an investigation, “the element of justifiable reliance does not fail as a matter of law.”

Full post as published by Abstract Appeal on February 14, 2011 (boomark / email).