He may have been
fraudulently induced to believe that B was another B, and that
the barrel contained mackerel; but however much his belief on
those points may have affected his willingness to make the
promise, it would be somewhat extravagant to give his words a
different meaning on that account. "You" means the person before
the speaker, whatever his name, and "contents" applies to salt,
as well as to mackerel.
It is no doubt only by reason of a condition construed into the
contract that fraud is a ground of rescission. Parties could
agree, if they chose, that a contract should be binding without
regard to truth or falsehood outside of it on either part.
But, as has been said before in these Lectures, although the law
starts from the distinctions and uses the language of morality,
it necessarily ends in external standards not dependent on the
actual consciousness of the individual. [325] So it has happened
with fraud. If a man makes a representation, knowing facts which
by the average standard of the community are sufficient to give
him warning that it is probably untrue, and it is untrue, he is
guilty of fraud in theory of law whether he believes his
statement or not. The courts of Massachusetts, at least, go much
further.
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