Remember all of my posts about how fraud and contract claims don’t usually play well in litigation? Well, as always with the law, there are exceptions. For instance, a well plead Virginia Consumer Protection Act claim will survive a dismissal challenge.
A recent opinion out of the Alexandria division of the U. S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia sets out another exception, namely so called fraudulent inducement. In XL Specialty Ins. Co. v. Truland et al, the Court considered the question of whether both a tort and contract claim can coexist in the same lawsuit when the tort claim is based upon the information provided to the plaintiff when that information proves false.