Lee R. Schroeder is an Ohio licensed attorney with Schroeder Law LLC in Ottawa. He limits his practice to business, real estate, estate planning and agriculture issues in northwest Ohio. He can be reached at lee@leeschroeder.com or at (419) 523-5523. This article is not intended to serve as legal advice, and specific advice should be sought from the licensed attorney of your choice based upon the specific facts and circumstances that you face.
Any time someone is the victim of a bad deal, they have the tendency to think they’ve been the victim of fraud. However, legally, there are six conditions that must be present for it to legitimately be fraud. Some of those conditions are that the person must know they are committing a fraud (it can’t be an honest mistake) and it must have caused some sort of monetary or physical damage.
Human interaction naturally leads to misunderstandings. Some misunderstandings are unintentional. Other times, people intend to mislead us. The natural reaction to being misled is at least embarrassment or resentment and occasionally anger.
Although people can make bad decisions, people should not be defrauded. Therefore, certain misunderstandings can be fraud under the law. Ohio law draws a line between simply “a bad deal” and “fraud.”
Read Lee’s full article on fraud in the Lima News here: Legal-Ease: Determining if it’s fraud
Source: LimaOhio.com,Legal-Ease: Determining if it’s fraud by Lee R. Schroeder, January 4, 2015