But neither the contract nor the implied condition calls
for the existence of the facts as to which the false
representations were made. They call only for the absence of
certain false representations. The condition is not that the
promisee shall be a certain other B, or that the contents of the
barrel shall be mackerel, [326] but that the promisee has not
lied to him about material facts.
Then the question arises, How do you determine what facts are
material? As the facts are not required by the contract, the only
way in which they can be material is that a belief in their being
true is likely to have led to the making of the contract.
It is not then true, as it is sometimes said, that the law does
not concern itself with the motives for making contracts. On the
contrary, the whole scope of fraud outside the contract is the
creation of false motives and the removal of true ones. And this
consideration will afford a reasonable test of the cases in which
fraud will warrant rescission. It is said that a fraudulent
representation must be material to have that effect. But how are
we to decide whether it is material or not? If the above argument
is correct, it must be by an appeal to ordinary experience to
decide whether a belief that the fact was as represented would
naturally have led to, or a contrary belief would naturally have
prevented, the making of the contract.
If the belief would not naturally have had such an effect, either
in general or under the known circumstances of the particular
case, the fraud is immaterial. If a man is induced to contract
with another by a fraudulent representation of the latter that he
is a great-grandson of Thomas Jefferson, I do not suppose that
the contract would be voidable unless the contractee knew that,
for special reasons, his lie would tend to bring the contract
about.
The conditions or grounds for avoiding a contract which have been
dealt with thus far are conditions concerning the conduct of the
parties outside of the itself. [327] Still confining myself to
conditions arising by construction of law,--that is to say, not
directly and in terms attached to a promise by the literal
meaning of the words in which it is expressed,--I now come to
those which concern facts to which the contract does in some way
refer.
Such conditions may be found in contracts where the promise is
only on one side. It has been said that where the contract is
unilateral, and its language therefore is all that of the
promisor, clauses in his favor will be construed as conditions
more readily than the same words in a bilateral contract; indeed,
that they must be so construed, because, if they do not create a
condition, they do him no good, since ex hypothesi they are not
promises by the other party. /1/ How far this ingenious
suggestion has had a practical effect on doctrine may perhaps be
doubted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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