Court Opinion

ID: 9643025
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 18:15:44.910101+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:56.678591
License: Public Domain

SANBORN, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
My initial examination of the record in this case created an inference in my mind that a fraud had been perpetrated upon the appellants. Further consideration, however, and the exhaustive opinion of Judge GARDNER has convinced me that a finding of actionable fraud could not be sustained under the evidence, and I therefore concur. I am still of the opinion, however, that the record shows that the appellants and Judge Mack were imposed upon with respect to these lands by Callahan, acting for the insurance company. This court, however, has long been of the view that in actions to recover damages for fraud, the misrepresentations must not only have been relied upon, but must have been of such a nature or made under such circumstances that the plaintiff had a right to rely upon them. In the case of Horton et al. v. Reynolds et al. (C. C. A. 8) 65 F.(2d) 430, the facts of which bear more than a slight resemblance to those here involved, we refused to permit the rescission of a sale of lands, due to the opportunity which the plaintiffs had to find out for themselves the character of the lands allegedly misrepresented. Obviously, common prudence required an examination and appraisal of these Arkansas lands by some unbiased person if their value was regarded as being of consequence. There was no real lack of opportunity for examination. If the appellants chose to rely upon the generalities of Callahan, who certainly bore no relation of trust to them, that was their privilege, but was at their own peril. In Attwood v. Small, 6 Clark & F., 232, 7 Eng. Rep. 684, referred to in Horton et al. v. Reynolds et al., supra, the House of Lords said: “The question is not as to waiver or acquiescence in fraud, but whether the parties have used that ordinary degree of vigilance and circumspection in order to protect themselves, which the law has a right to expect from those who apply for its aid.” The following excerpt from the opinion of Mr. Justice Field in Slaughter’s Adm’r v. Gerson, 13 Wall. 379, 383, 20 L. Ed. 627, is also appropriate: “A court of equity will not undertake, any more than a court of law, to relieve a party from the consequences of his own inattention and carelessness. Where the means of knowledge are at hand and equally available to both parties, and the subject of pur*763díase is alike open to their inspection, if the purchaser does not avail himself of these means and opportunities, he will not be heard to say that he has been deceived by the vendor’s misrepresentations.”