Court Opinion

ID: 9501248
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 19:04:28.538506+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:00:25.583280
License: Public Domain

SMITH, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s opinion that the district court’s jury instruction that defined the phrase “knowingly false representation” is contrary to Minnesota law. The majority states that “the phrase ‘knowingly false representations’ is not ambiguous: The plain language of the statute requires that the employer know that the representation is false.” I agree with the majority that the phrase is unambiguous but, “applying] the plain and ordinary meaning of the words used,” Johnson v. Paynesville Farmers Union Co-op. Oil Co., Nos. A10-1596, A10-2135, 2012 WL 3101667, at *10 (Minn. Aug. 1, 2012) (slip copy), I reach a different conclusion.
A “false representation” or “misrepresentation” is defined as either “[t]he act of making a false or misleading statement about something, usu[ally] with the intent to deceive” or “an assertion that does not accord with the facts.” Black’s Law Dictionary 1016 (7th ed. 1999). Such a misrepresentation is “knowing” if it is “deliberate” or “conscious.” Id. at 876. The district court instructed the jury that “[a] person’s statement is knowingly false if, at the time the false representation was made, the person knew the representation was false or the person represented that he knew about the facts when he did not know if the facts were true or false.” It is undisputed that if the person making the representation “knew the representation was false,” it was a “knowingly false representation.” And it is equally true that if the person “represented that he knew about [certain] facts when he did not know” about those facts, he made a “knowingly false representation.” In other words, the person deliberately made “an assertion” (i.e., that he knew about certain facts) “that d[id] not accord with the facts” (i.e., he did not know about those facts). Black’s Law Dictionary, supra, at 1016.
During jury deliberations, the district court clarified that “[y]ou cannot have a knowingly false representation if you think the statement is true.” This also comports with the plain and ordinary meaning of “knowingly false representation,” which requires that the misrepresentation be “deliberate” or “conscious.” Black’s Law Dictionary, supra, at 876.
For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.