Also known as: false answers · false statement
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A response or statement in legal proceedings, discovery, or bar matters that is false or constitutes a sham.
Fabian Flynn, counsel for a hospital defendant, signed discovery responses denying the existence of internal morbidity reports after only consulting risk management staff. The reports existed under a different electronic category. The court imposed sanctions on counsel and the hospital because the certification was improper and not substantially justified.
Faith Fitzgerald testified as a curator in a copyright suit. The plaintiff sought to introduce her prior conviction for submitting gallery provenance papers containing inaccuracies. The court admitted the conviction because the elements required proof of a dishonest act or false statement.
Francesca Fiore, outside counsel, responded to a bar questionnaire by stating there were no known incidents of dishonesty in an applicant's employment history. She had received secondhand reports of falsified mileage disclosures. The statement contradicted information already in her possession.
Fatou Fall submitted a certification letter stating that no issues had ever been raised about an applicant's honesty with regulators. She knew of a prior regulatory interview focused on possible deceptive reporting. The letter omitted that inquiry despite the bar application's direct question.
Foster Forge published an article accusing a university president of ordering improper admissions decisions. The president sued for defamation. The court required proof that the publication occurred with knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth.
L. B. Sullivan is one of three elected Commissioners of the City of Montgomery, Alabama. He has duties including supervision of the Police Department. He brought this civil libel action against the New York Times Company and four individual petitioners who were Alabama clergymen. The suit sought $500,000 in damages based on a full-page advertisement entitled "Heed Their Rising Voices" that appeared in the New York Times on March 29, 1960. A jury in the Circuit Court of Montgomery County awarded Sullivan the full amount claimed against all petitioners. The Supreme Court of Alabama affirmed the judgment. The advertisement was signed by the Committee to Defend Martin Luther King and the Struggle for Freedom in the South. It described widespread non-violent demonstrations by Southern Negro students and an unprecedented wave of terror against them. Two paragraphs formed the basis of the claim. One alleged that after students sang on the State Capitol steps their leaders were expelled, truckloads of police ringed the Alabama State College Campus, and the dining hall was padlocked to starve students into submission. The other stated that Southern violators had bombed Dr. King's home, assaulted him, arrested him seven times, and charged him with perjury. The text appeared over the names of 64 persons. It was endorsed by the individual petitioners among others. Sullivan contended that the references to police referred to him in his supervisory capacity. Six Montgomery residents testified that they read the statements as referring to him. However, several statements were inaccurate. The students sang the National Anthem rather than "My Country, 'Tis of Thee." The expulsions were for a different incident. The dining hall was not padlocked. Dr. King had been arrested only four times. The bombings occurred before Sullivan's tenure with police efforts to apprehend the perpetrators. The Times published the advertisement for approximately $4800. It acted upon an order from a New York advertising agency. The agency provided a letter from A. Philip Randolph certifying authorization. The Times made no efforts to confirm its accuracy against its own news files. Sullivan served written demands for retraction on the petitioners pursuant to Alabama law. None of the individual petitioners responded as they had not authorized use of their names. The Times did not retract. It published a retraction only upon demand by Governor John Patterson after learning more facts. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to the separate petitions of the individual petitioners and the Times due to the importance of the constitutional issues involved.
View caseFrostline Textiles sued a credit reporting agency over a publication that harmed its business reputation. The court examined whether the statements qualified as false assertions of fact made with actual malice rather than protected opinion.
In July 1976, Dun & Bradstreet, a credit reporting agency that provides subscribers with confidential financial and related information about businesses under subscription agreements prohibiting further disclosure, sent a report to five subscribers stating that Greenmoss Builders, Inc., a construction contractor, had filed a voluntary petition for bankruptcy. The report was false and grossly misrepresented respondent's assets and liabilities because the petition had actually been filed by one of Greenmoss's former employees. On the same day, Greenmoss's president learned of the report while discussing the possibility of future financing with the company's bank, immediately called Dun & Bradstreet's regional office to explain the error, requested a correction, and asked for the names of the firms that had received the report so he could assure them of the company's solvency. Dun & Bradstreet promised to investigate but refused to divulge the names. After confirming the report was inaccurate, it issued a corrective notice on or about August 3, 1976, to the five subscribers stating that a former employee had filed for bankruptcy and that Greenmoss continued in business as usual. Greenmoss expressed dissatisfaction with the notice and again requested the subscriber names, which Dun & Bradstreet again refused to provide. Greenmoss then brought a defamation action in Vermont state court alleging injury to its reputation and seeking compensatory and punitive damages. At trial, evidence established that the error had been caused by a 17-year-old high school student paid to review Vermont bankruptcy pleadings who inadvertently attributed the petition to Greenmoss, and that Dun & Bradstreet did not attempt to verify the information with the company before reporting it despite routine practice to do so. The jury awarded Greenmoss $50,000 in compensatory damages and $300,000 in punitive damages. The trial court granted Dun & Bradstreet's motion for a new trial due to dissatisfaction with its charge to the jury. The Vermont Supreme Court reversed the trial court's grant of a new trial. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseA false answer affirmatively misstates facts or denies the existence of responsive materials. An evasive answer fails to admit or deny directly and is treated as a failure to answer under the rules.
The conviction is admitted if the court can readily determine that its elements required proof or admission of a dishonest act or false statement, regardless of punishment or case type.
Yes. The rule prohibits knowingly making a false statement of material fact in connection with a bar admission application. A lawyer must possess actual awareness of the falsity at the time the statement is made.
A public official must prove by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant published the false statement with knowledge of its falsity or with reckless disregard for the truth.
…know, at times, resorts to exaggeration, to vilification of men who have been, or are, prominent in church or state, and even to false statement. But the people of this nation have ordained in the light of history, that, in spite of the probability of excesses and abuses, these liberties are, in the long view, essential to…