Sweeny Co. v. Engineers-Constructors, Inc.
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia
109 F.R.D. 358 (1986)
Sweeny Co. (plaintiff), a subcontractor, sued Engineers-Constructors, Inc. (ECI) (defendant) alleging both contract claims and fraud, asserting only that in the "spring or summer of 1985" unnamed "agents and employees" of ECI told Sweeny it would be paid in full while ECI had already secretly developed a scheme to terminate the subcontract without payment. When ECI moved to dismiss the fraud claim for lack of particularity, Sweeny amended its complaint, but the fraud allegations remained essentially unchanged; ECI again moved to dismiss, and Sweeny did not respond to that motion.
Whether a plaintiff's fraud claim fails Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b)'s particularity requirement where it does not provide specifics as to the nature of the misrepresentation, by whom it was committed, when and where it was committed, who relied upon it, and its effect.