Fraud Is Not What You Think It Is

Feb 4, 2020

There are actually two different definitions of fraud. The lay definition is anything that is a lie. The legal definition goes much further than that and if you can’t satisfy the legal elements of fraud you won’t survive a motion to dismiss or motion to strike.

It’s complicated like everything else.

There are many components that must be satisfied before you can get to a judge or jury to render a verdict on fraud. Such a verdict would be for legal or monetary damages. But there are other actions that do apply to fake foreclosures.

FRAUD: Here are some guidelines:

A lie is not fraud unless you believed it. And it still isn’t fraud unless you reasonably believed it. This one is fraught with possibilities because while you may have suspected something was wrong there is a very fuzzy line between that and a reasonable belief that the claimant was a creditor in a foreclosure case. Why else would they be there, right?
The lie is not fraud unless you reasonably relied on the lie to make decisions that caused you to act to your detriment.
And it’s still not fraud unless unless you can state with specificity when, where and how the lie was communicated to you.
And then it is still not fraud unless you can also state and prove that the speaker had the intent of lying to you, knew that he/she was lying and that they intended for you to act on it to your detriment.
It’s still not fraud yet. You still need to prove that the lie was told to benefit the speaker of the lie and not someone else unless it is a joint venture or conspiracy.

If you don’t have all that then you don’t have a cause of action for fraud, but you might very well have a cause of action for RICO, negligence, fraud upon the court, and equitable relief for unjust enrichment etc.