[344]. O’Neill v. Conway, 88 Conn. 651; Bethell v. Bethell, 92 Ind. 318; Riley v. Bell, 120 Ia. 618; Gund Brewing Co. v. Peterson, 130 Ia. 301; Davis v. Central Land Co., 162 Ia. 269; Altoona State Bank v. Hart, 82 Kan. 398; Braley v. Powers, 92 Me. 203; Litchfield v. Hutchinson, 117 Mass. 195; Savage v. Stevens, 126 Mass. 207; Teague v. Irwin, 127 Mass. 217; Adams v. Collins, 196 Mass. 422; Huntress v. Blodgett, 206 Mass. 318; Chatham Furnace Co. v. Moffatt, 147 Mass. 403; Riggs v. Thorpe, 67 Minn. 217; Vincent v. Corbitt, 94 Miss. 46; Western Cattle Co. v. Gates, 190 Mo. 391; Paretti v. Rebenack, 81 Mo. App. 494; Leicher v. Keeney, 98 Mo. App. 394, 110 Mo. App. 292; Leach v. Bond, 129 Mo. App. 315; Crosby v. Wells, 73 N. J. Law, 790; Thompson v. Koewing, 79 N. J. Law, 246; Hadcock v. Osmer, 153 N. Y. 604; Modlin v. Roanoke Navigation Co., 145 N. C. 218; Pate v. Blades, 163 N. C. 267; Joines v. Combs, 38 Okl. 380; Gibbens v. Bourland, (Tex. Civ. App.) 145 S. W. 274; Grant v. Huschke, 74 Wash. 257; Tolly v. Poteet, 62 W. Va. 231; Rogers v. Rosenfeld, 158 Wis. 285 Accord. See Roberts v. Anheuser Busch Ass’n, 211 Mass. 449.
In Brownlie v. Campbell, 5 App. Cas. 925, Lord Blackburn said (pp. 952—53): “The Courts of Law had to refer fraud, in which knowledge was an essential ingredient, to a jury. A Court of Equity had to find it for itself, and consequently the judges in Courts of Equity were not driven to be so precisely accurate in stating exactly whether they were going upon the ground that there was a contract or warranty that the thing was so, or whether they were going upon the ground that the party, knowing it was not, and representing that it was, had committed a fraud in doing that. Most of the cases (the leading one is Burrowes v. Loch, 10 Ves. 470, and it is sufficient to mention that, though there were others) when looked at, if they do not absolutely amount to contract, come uncommonly near it. In Burrowes v. Loch a man proposing to lend money on the security of an equitable assignment of a share of what remained due on account of the residue of a testator’s estate, went to the trustee who held the fund and asked him, telling him the facts, ‘I am going to lend money upon the security of this share, has any prior loan upon this been communicated to you so as to make you have prior notice, so as to make that other loan come in before me and cut me out, tell me that, in order that I may know whether I will lend the money or not.’ The party on the other side answered, ‘There has been none such.’ To say that that is not warranty or contract that he has received no such notice is, I think, going very near the wind; if it was not that it was so uncommonly like it, that I cannot make the distinction myself. That would have been sufficient for the Master of the Rolls to say, ‘You have warranted this.’ He also had considerable ground for doubting whether the man had really bona fide forgotten. The man, he seems to have thought, had thought this, ‘I will not take the trouble of a search,’ the fact being that he really knew nothing about this and would not take the trouble of looking, but he boldly made the assertion, ‘I know there is none,’ saying as a fact, ‘I know there is none,’ when the real truth could not be more than ‘I am pretty sure there is none.’ If, when a man thinks it is highly probable that a thing exists, he chooses to say he knows the thing exists, that is really asserting what is false—it is positive fraud. That has been repeatedly laid down, and I think the more it is considered the more clear it becomes. If you choose to say, and say without inquiry, ‘I warrant that,’ that is a contract. If you say, ‘I know it,’ and if you say that in order to save the trouble of inquiring, that is a false representation—you are saying what is false to induce them to act upon it. I think all the cases which have been cited come round to pointing to that, but none of them, as far as I am aware, are in contradiction with that which I have cited from Chief Justice Tindal, and I think there are a good many other authorities to the same effect.”
As to liability where defendant had no reasonable ground to believe what he stated, see Mayer v. Salazar, 84 Cal. 646; McCabe v. Desnoyers, 20 S. D. 581.
Statement as to matter of which obviously defendant could not have personal knowledge, see: Krause v. Cook, 144 Mich. 365; Spead v. Tomlinson, 73 N. H. 46.
[345]. Part of the statement is an abridgment of the report in 6 Bingham, 396.
[346]. Hindman v. First Nat. Bank, (C. C. A.) 112 Fed. 931; Hart v. Tallmadge, 2 Day, 381; Young v. Hall, 4 Ga. 95; Endsley v. Johns, 120 Ill. 469; Leonard v. Springer, 197 Ill. 532; Skeels v. Porter, 165 Ia. 255; Carpenter v. Wright, 52 Kan. 221; Bean v. Herrick, 12 Me. 262; Page v. Bent, 2 Met. 371; Stoney Creek Woolen Co. v. Smalley, 111 Mich. 321; Busterud v. Farrington, 36 Minn. 320; Brownlee v. Hewitt, 1 Mo. App. 360; Bingham v. Fish, 86 N. J. Law, 316; White v. Merritt, 7 N. Y. 352; Hubbard v. Briggs, 31 N. Y. 518; Carpenter v. Lee, 5 Yerg. 265; Paddock v. Fletcher, 42 Vt. 389 Accord.
[347]. Statement of facts and arguments of counsel omitted.
[348]. See West London Bank v. Kitson, 13 Q. B. D. 360; National Bank v. Kershaw Oil Mill, (C. C. A.) 202 Fed. 90. Compare Tackey v. McBain, [1912] A. C. 186.
[349]. Iasigi v. Brown, 17 How. 183; Bank of Montreal v. Thayer, 7 Fed. 622; Merchants Nat. Bank v. Armstrong, 65 Fed. 932; Hindman v. First Nat. Bank, (C. C. A.) 98 Fed. 562, 112 Fed. 931; Western Tel. Co. v. Schriver, 141 Fed. 538; Harrison v. Savage, 19 Ga. 310; Slade v. Little, 20 Ga. 371; Hunnewell v. Duxbury, 154 Mass. 286; Nash v. Minnesota Title & Trust Co., 159 Mass. 437; Rawlings v. Bean, 80 Mo. 614; Lembeck v. Gerken, 88 N. J. Law, 329; McCracken v. West, 17 Ohio, 16; Wells v. Cook, 16 Ohio St. 67 Accord. But see Merchants Nat. Bank v. Robison, 8 Utah, 256.
Person or member of a class to whom defendant expected the representation to be passed on, see Shrewsbury v. Blount, 2 Man. & Gr. 475; Gerhard v. Bates, 2 E. & B. 476; Bedford v. Bagshaw, 4 H. & N. 538; Scott v. Brown, [1892] 2 Q. B. 724; Andrews v. Mockford, [1896] 1 Q. B. 372; Warfield v. Clark, 118 Ia. 69; Wells v. Western Tel. Co., 144 Ia. 605; Henry v. Dennis, 95 Me. 24; Chubbuck v. Cleveland, 37 Minn. 466; Baker v. Crandall, 78 Mo. 584; Stuart v. Bank of Staplehurst, 57 Neb. 569; Addington v. Allen, 11 Wend. 374; Hadcock v. Osmer, 153 N. Y. 604; Cazeaux v. Mali, 25 Barb. 578; Converse v. Sickles, 16 App. Div. 49.