Opinion ID: 2258987
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Directed Verdict on the Fraud Claim

Text: At the close of all the evidence, the trial court directed a verdict for the landlords on Count IV of the tenants' complaint, alleging fraud in the performance of the Voluntary Agreement. [10] The court expressed some doubt about whether such a cause of action, sounding in tort, [11] was even recognized in the District of Columbia. See United States ex rel. DMI, Inc. v. Darwin Construction Co., 750 F.Supp. 536, 541 (D.D.C. 1990). But even assuming that such a claim was viable, the court ruled, inter alia, that the tenants had presented no evidence of the landlords' specific intent to defraud them, nor had they proved their reliance on any of the landlords' allegedly fraudulent assertions. The tenants contend that this ruling was erroneous because they presented evidence that the landlords' non-performance of the Voluntary Agreement was deliberate and motivated by a desire to enhance their financial status at the expense of the Rittenhouse tenants. Even assuming the correctness of their description of the evidence, that is not enough to prove fraud. Although there was plenty of evidence that the landlords had breached the Voluntary Agreement, there was none showing that this breach was motivated by a specific fraudulent intent. Fraud must be established by clear and convincing evidence, which is not equally consistent with either honesty or deceit. Bennett v. Kiggins, 377 A.2d 57, 59 (D.C.1977), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 1034, 98 S.Ct. 768, 54 L.Ed.2d 782 (1978). The evidence at trial, even when viewed in the light most favorable to the tenants, did not pass this test. The tenants offered testimony that the heating and cooling units were among the cheapest on the market, that they were improperly installed and were never maintained according to the manufacturer's specifications, and that the landlords realized an immediate saving of almost $250,000 a year after they were installed (which was, after all, one of the main purposes of the conversion to individual units). But simply being a cheapskate is not fraud. This evidence showed, at most, that the landlords were penny-pinchers who did not want to spend as much money on the new units as the tenants might have preferred. No reasonable trier of fact could have found by clear and convincing evidence, as Bennett and other cases require, that these actions reflected an intent on the part of the landlords to defraud the tenants. Permitting the jury to consider the tenants' fraud claim on these facts would have been an invitation to cross the bounds of permissible inference and enter the forbidden territory of conjecture and speculation. Shelton v. United States, 505 A.2d 767, 771 (D.C.1986). We hold that the fraud claim was properly taken from the jury.