§ 18-6 Fraud - Future Promises

• Library: South Carolina Requests to Charge - Civil (SCBar) (2016 Ed.)

§ 18-6 Fraud - Future Promises

Ordinarily, a fraudulent representation must relate to a present or pre-existing fact and cannot be based on unfulfilled promises or statements about future events. However, a fraudulent misrepresentation of a fact occurs when a person promises to do a certain thing and, at the time, has no intention of keeping the promise. Accordingly, a promise made with an existing intention not to perform for the purpose of inducing another to perform an act may constitute actionable fraud. A future promise is not fraudulent unless such a future promise was part of a general design or plan existing at the time, made as part of a general scheme to induce the signing of a paper or to make one act, as he otherwise would not have acted, to his injury.

A mere breach of a contract does not normally constitute fraud. In order to raise a failure to perform under the terms of a contract as an element of actionable fraud, there must be a clear showing that the party had no intent to perform and induced the contract on this basis.

See Woodward v. Todd, 270 S.C. 82, 240 S.E.2d 641 (1978); Dailey Co. v. American Inst. of Mktg. Sys., Inc., 256 S.C. 550, 183 S.E.2d 444 (1971); Davis v. Upton, 250 S.C. 288, 157 S.E.2d 567 (1967); Jones v. Cooper, 234 S.C. 477, 109 S.E.2d 5 (1959); Coleman v. Stevens,

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