“The settlement figure was£300,000 . This was not however paid in one lump, and I had not kept any record of what I had received when. This was why, although I thought I had received everything I had been due before my father received the letter from the Court Funds Office dated23 July 2008 , I came to believe that money that remained in court must have been missed. I believed that the Court and the Court Funds Office had investigated the matter and had determined that the money was properly due to me.”
“I think the authorities establish the following propositions: First, in order to sustain an action of deceit, there must be proof of fraud, and nothing short of that will suffice. Secondly, fraud is proved when it is shewn that a false representation has been made (1) knowingly, or (2) without belief in its truth, or (3) recklessly, careless whether it be true or false. Although I have treated the second and third as distinct cases, I think the third is but an instance of the second, for one who makes a statement under such circumstances can have no real belief in the truth of what he states. To prevent a false statement being fraudulent, there must, I think, always be an honest belief in its truth. And this probably covers the whole ground, for one who knowingly alleges that which is false, has obviously no such honest belief. Thirdly, if fraud be proved, the motive of the person guilty of it is immaterial. It matters not that there was no intention to cheat or injure the person to whom the statement was made.”
“In my opinion making a false statement through want of care falls far short of, and is a very different thing from, fraud, and the same may be said of a false representation honestly believed though on insufficient grounds. Indeed Cotton LJ. himself indicated, in the words I have already quoted, that he should not call it fraud. But the whole current of authorities, with which I have so long detained your Lordships, shews to my mind conclusively that fraud is essential to found an action of deceit, and that it cannot be maintained where the acts proved cannot properly be so termed.”
“I do not think that it is desirable to attempt to define the limits of good faith; it is a broad concept, the definition of which, in so far as it is capable of definition at all, will have to be worked out through the cases. In my view it is capable of embracing a failure to act in a commercially acceptable way and sharp practice of a kind that falls short of outright dishonesty as well as dishonesty itself. … Where he knows that the payment he has received was made by mistake, the position is quite straightforward: he must return it. … Greater difficulty may arise, however, in cases where the payee has grounds for believing that the payment may have been made by mistake, but cannot be sure. In such cases good faith may well dictate that an inquiry be made of the payer. The nature and extent of the inquiry called for will, of course, depend on the circumstances of the case, but I do not think that person who has, or thinks he was, good reason to believe that the payment was made by mistake will often be found to have acted in good faith if he pays the money away first making inquiries of the person from whom he received it.”