Opinion ID: 1918445
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Particularity of Fraud Claim

Text: WDC also contends that the trial justice erred in denying its pretrial motion to dismiss the city's fraud counterclaim for the city's failure to plead it with the particularity required by Rule 9(b). Because of the posture of this case, however, this issue can be resolved with relative dispatch. Even assuming arguendo that the city's fraud claim was unduly vague in some respects, we are convinced that any such defect has been cured via the particular fraud evidence that the city introduced at trial. Given that we are remanding this case for a new trial, the rule's purpose of giving fair and specific notice of the alleged fraud has been satisfied. See 1 Kent, R.I. Civ. Prac. § 9.2 at 92 (1969) (What constitutes sufficient particularity necessarily depends upon the nature of the case and should always be determined in the light of the purpose of the rule to give fair notice to the adverse party and to enable him to prepare his responsive pleading.). Based upon the evidence that was introduced at the trial, WDC now has fair notice of what transactions and conduct the city alleged amounted to common law fraud, thereby enabling it to prepare a focused defense to this claim on retrial. As a result, we deem the city's fraud pleading to have been amended (and limited) in light of the fraud evidence introduced at the trial. Thus, because the evidence adduced at trial has provided all the particularity that WDC needs to defend against this fraud claim, the trial justice's refusal to grant WDC's Rule 9(b) motion was not reversible error. Because the granting of any such motion typically would have included leave to file a more particularized pleading, see 1 Kent, § 9.2 at 93, this conclusion seems especially appropriate here.