Mar. 22 Blog – Some Facts about Fraud Law

By and large, the legal definition of fraud is some sort of intentional distortion of a concrete fact that a person makes to someone else while being aware of the fact that the first person is intentionally engaging in a deception that is meant to cause the other person to take action that will result damage or loss that directly benefits the person who is committing the fraud. Fraud can also denote a willful neglect to declare significant information which would materially affect an person’s ability to properly comprehend the statements in question.

For a dissimulation to be considered a fraudulent act, it has to have something to do with “existing fact” and not simply a promise for future action that was not kept, unless one can prove that the person accused of fraud made such a promise without ever intending to make good on the promise. An assurance to carry out future action or simply stating one’s personal or professional opinion doesn’t hold up as a sufficient legal basis for a claim of fraud unless it can be shown that the party stating that opinion has a special knowledge of certain details that are not commonly known by others of a similar standing. A fabrication or omission of information must be shown to be “material,” meaning that the false pretext had a noticeable effect on the claimant’s decision making process.

There are many laws, both state and federal, that are designed to cover fraud in a number of areas. Some of the most common areas of practice include consumer fraud, corporate fraud, and insurance fraud. Mueller Hillin specializes in Fraud Law in Philadelphia, Atlanta, Houston and Austin.