Misrepresentation

The authorities established the following propositions. First, in order to sustain an action of deceit, there had to be proof of fraud and nothing short of that would suffice. Second, fraud was proved when it was shown that a false representation had been made: (i) knowingly; (ii) without belief in its truth; or (iii) recklessly, careless whether it was true or false. Where the issue was whether the utterance had been fraudulently made, the question was not whether the defendant in any given case had honestly believed the representation to be true in the sense assigned to it by the court on an objective consideration of its truth or falsity, but whether he had honestly believed the representation to have been true in the sense in which he had understood it, albeit erroneously, when it had been made.