Misrepresentation

The statement made by a party to a contract, that a thing relating to it is in fact in a particular way, when he knows it is not so.

The misrepresentation must be both false and fraudulent, in order to make the party making it, responsible to the other for damages. It is not every misrepresentation which will make a party liable; when a mere misstatement of a fact has been erroneously made, without fraud, in a casual, improvident communication, respecting a matter which the person to whom the communication was made, and who had an interest in it, should not have taken upon trust, but is bound to inquire himself, and had the means of ascertaining the truth, there would be no responsibility and when the informant was under no legal pledge or obligation as to the precise accuracy and correctness of his statement, the other party can maintain no action for the consequences of that statement, upon which it was his indiscretion to place reliance.
   

This entry contains material from Bouvier's Legal Dictionary, a work published in the 1850's.

A false and material statement which induces a party to enter into a contract. This is a ground for rescission of the contract. - (read more on Misrepresentation)