Opinion ID: 573144
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Willful Deception

Text: 9 Under Alabama law, an essential element of willful deception is [k]nowledge of the falsehood with intent to deceive.... Kaye v. Pawnee Constr. Co., 680 F.2d 1360, 1369 (11th Cir.1982) (interpreting Alabama law). REF's argument for intentional deception rests upon the following scenario. Either First Guaranty or Investment Group intentionally described gross figures as net figures in the offering, hoping to entice a buyer to bid substantially higher for the mortgages. The offering was then distributed to many sophisticated business entities, even though all were very capable of discovering the fraud, in order to attract many inflated bids. When the highest bidder was ascertained, the seller and the broker would provide that party with accurate information about the mortgages (Forms 2010). The villains would then hope that this bidder would not perform the simple arithmetic which would defeat the scheme, despite knowing that it is standard industry practice for mortgage buyers to check all figures diligently. Such a scenario is perhaps conceivable, but not very plausible. Under such circumstances, a party alleging intentional fraud would need solid proof to withstand summary judgment. See Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 1356, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986); Goldberg v. Household Bank, F.S.B., 890 F.2d 965, 967 (7th Cir.1989). 10 Not only did the district court fail to find persuasive evidence to support REF's allegations of intentional fraud, it failed to find any evidence to support those allegations. Our independent review of the record also fails to disclose any evidence which would indicate that either the seller or the broker intentionally misrepresented the mortgage servicing fees in order to deceive REF. In fact, all of the evidence negates such a finding. Statements by the defendants uniformly characterize the error as honest and innocent. The defendants willingly admitted the mistake soon after Wilson told them of the error. Moreover, the internal projections of the broker, calculated to judge the adequacy of the bids, utilized the same erroneous information which Wilson plugged into his computer program. There is no genuine dispute about material facts here. The defendants made an error, but did not engage in willful fraud in order to deceive REF. Because the record taken as a whole could not lead a rational trier of fact to find for [REF], the district court correctly granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants on REF's willful deception count. Matsushita, 475 U.S. at 587, 106 S.Ct. at 1356.