Legal Remedies Commons^™

Nonmaterial Misrepresentation: Damages, Rescission, And The Possibility Of Efficient Fraud, Emily Sherwin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Buried in the details of legal doctrine governing misrepresentation is a remedial anomaly that raises some interesting questions about how law should deal with moral wrongs such as fraud. We tend to think of deliberate deception--fraud--as a grave moral wrong. At least, we think of deception as gravely wrong when the deceiver's objective is not to avert harm or spare feelings, but to obtain someone's money or goods. Deception denies the autonomy of the person deceived and undermines the foundation of trust in human interaction. The law, however, does not penalize every instance of fraud. Moreover, the standards governing when …