Opinion ID: 3053963
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: its materiality;

Text: (4) the defendant’s knowledge of its falsity or ignorance of its truth; (5) the defendant’s intent that the representation should be acted on by the plaintiff and in the manner reasonably contemplated; (6) the plaintiff’s ignorance of its falsity; (7) the plaintiff’s reliance on its truth; (8) the plaintiff’s right to rely on the representation; (9) and the plaintiff’s resulting injury. Smallwood v. Fisk, 934 P.2d 557, 559 (Or. App. 1997) (citing Rice v. McAlister, 519 P.2d 1263 (Or. 1974)). The key issue here is whether Sun’s employee Freeman knew that his alleged statement that there was no mercury in the calcine was false when he made it or that he was ignorant regarding its truth or falsity. The McDonalds concede that no evidence in the record directly proves what Freeman knew about the cleanliness of the calcine at the time of the negotiations. The McDonalds argue that a jury could find that in 1973 Freeman was reckless to rely on antiquated 1958 field testing designed only to evaluate whether there was commercially recoverable mercury in the calcine when he allegedly made the statement to McDonald, or that he was reckless because of the high 15528 MCDONALD v. SUN OIL CO. probability that he knew nothing about Sunoco’s 1958 field assay. We disagree. The McDonalds offered no evidence to support these theories. The only evidence in the record bearing on Freeman’s mental state at the relevant time is that tests conducted during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s would have shown that all of the mercury had been removed from the calcine, that by 1973 common assay methods would still not have detected mercury in the calcine, and that calcine was used in road construction at least into the 1980s. [12] The McDonalds suggest that because there is no evidence that Freeman ever went to the mine before meeting with McDonald, because there is no evidence that Cordero Mining ever reported the results of its field assays to corporate, because “[e]vidence about what Freeman knew or did not know about the calcine is conspicuously absent from the voluminous documents produced by Sunoco,” and because they are entitled to all reasonable inferences at summary judgment, that they have shown that the “record fails to establish that Freeman had any basis for representing the calcine to be mercury-free.” (Appellants’ Reply Br. 26 (emphasis in original).) However, this statement ignores the burden of proof. The McDonalds had the burden of presenting evidence sufficient that a reasonable jury could find by clear and convincing evidence that Freeman made the statements with ignorance as to their truth. It was not Sun’s burden to show that Freeman had a basis for making the statements; it was the McDonalds’ burden to show that he did not. The McDonalds provide no evidence about Freeman’s knowledge of falsity, and therefore they cannot meet their burden. The district court’s grant of summary judgment on the fraud issue will be affirmed.