Mar. 3, 2026
The promise is the lie: A litigator's guide to pleading promissory fraud
A promissory fraud claim lives or dies on facts showing the promisor never intended to perform when the promise was made--mere broken promises won't cut it.
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Every litigator knows the moment: a new client, furious about a broken promise, insists he is the victim of fraud. Promissory fraud may be the most commonly asserted but routinely under pleaded claim in California litigation. Practitioners allege it reflexively, yet few complaints survive a well-aimed demurrer because they omit what matters most: contemporaneous facts showin...
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