Court Opinion

ID: 9649170
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:43:53.049685+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:08.439888
License: Public Domain

KERN, Associate Judge,
dissenting in part and concurring in part:
The trial court at the conclusion of the evidence, and after hearing argument on appellees’ motion to dismiss appellants’ complaint for fraud, commented concerning this case (Record at 284):
I've been troubled by it. If you weigh it in the context of the ordinary case, so far as the preponderance of evidence is concerned, I wouldn’t have any doubt as to what we should do in the matter. But this is a case of fraud. And it takes on a higher degree, it takes a higher degree of proof to establish than the facts in an ordinary case.
The court went on to set forth the burden of proof placed upon appellants’ here (Record at 285-86):
In a civil case, the plaintiff must generally prove the essential elements of his claim by preponderance of the evidence. But when a claim for fraudulent misrepresentation is presented, the burden upon the plaintiff to prove every essential element of his claim, not simply by preponderance of the evidence, but by clear and convincing and unequivocal evidence.
A fraudulent representation cannot be established by evidence which is so equivocal as to be equally consistent with honesty as with deceit. Proof merely of suspicious circumstances is not enough. It is not necessary, however, the element of fraud and misrepresentation be proved by the direct evidence.
Fraudulent misrepresentation frequently is not susceptible to direct proof. And may be established by reasonable inferences deducible from the evidence. But where the proof be direct or circumstantial, or both, every essential element of fraudulent misrepresentation must be proved by clear, convincing and unequivocal evidence before the plaintiff may recover.
The court concluded (Record at 288):
Well, I don’t feel that I can submit this case to the jury, based on law as we see it. I think the evidence is clear that it’s not an ordinary case where preponderance of the evidence controls. If it was, why I’d have no hesitancy in submitting it to the jury. But we have to go beyond the preponderance of the evidence, according to the law as we understand it.
Finally, the court instructed the jury (Record at 157):
So, based upon the evidence here, we find that the, that the case does not warrant consideration by the jury because the matter of law, is our view, that the plaintiff has not established a prima facie case of fraud. Which, again, I repeat to you, has to be proved by unequivocal evidence, not merely by a preponderance of the evidence.
The trial court in my view was correct in its statement of the degree of proof appellants needed to present in support of their allegation of fraud on appellees’ part, Bennett v. Kiggins, D.C.App., 377 A.2d 57, 59 (1977), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 1034, 98 S.Ct. 768, 54 L.Ed.2d 782 (1978), and the prima facie showing they were required to make in order to avoid the grant of a directed verdict against them. Nader v. de Toledano, D.C.App., 408 A.2d 31, 42 n.6 (1979), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 1078, 100 S.Ct. 1028, 62 L.Ed.2d 761 (1980). Given the undisputed evidence that appellees, who were in the business of selling insurance,1 reminded appellants on more than one occasion that their auto liability and collision insurance was about to expire, the documentary evidence consisting of appellants’ applications for insurance and receipts received by ap*51pellants upon purchasing insurance from appellees that make no reference at all to collision coverage, and the concededly substantial knowledge of appellant Mills about collision insurance as to the result of numerous accident he had had, I agree with the trial court that reasonable jurors could not have found fraud under the unusual circumstances here.2
Accordingly, I dissent from the majority’s reversal. However, I agree that if the case goes to the jury, then appellant Crayton should not be dismissed as a party plaintiff and hence I concur to this extent with the majority.

, As appellees’ counsel put it (Record at 297): [TJhey’re not in business to defraud their customers and keep this business insurance away from them. They’re in business to sell it.

. Appellees pointedly argued (Record at 295 96):
[I]f you’re going to allege fraud and get to the jury, it’s the end of the insurance agencies in this city. . .. And then, particularly when you’re talking about collision insurance, and then an accident occurs, and the light bulb goes on and they say, hey, that’s really what I needed and who’s going to say I could at least get to the jury to let them make a determination as to whether I have, have a claim for fraud in terms of this coverage that I didn’t want, but now I decided I need it because I have an accident. That type of after the fact rationalization is totally destructive, Your Honor, to the type of business these people are in.