## Facts

- Audrey E. Vokes, a 51-year-old widow with no family, sought instruction to become an accomplished dancer and develop new interests.
- A local Arthur Murray franchise in Clearwater, Florida, operated by J. P. Davenport, recruited Vokes after she attended a studio “dance party.”
- The studio initially sold Vokes a small package of lessons at a low price, then repeatedly solicited additional purchases.
- Over less than sixteen months, Vokes entered multiple written enrollment agreements for dance instruction, ultimately purchasing 2,302 hours of lessons and paying $31,090.45.
- Vokes alleged the studio and its personnel systematically praised her “grace and poise,” told her she was rapidly improving, and represented that she would become an excellent dancer.
- Vokes further alleged the defendants used purported aptitude tests and progress measurements as a pretext to justify further sales.
- Despite the praise, Vokes alleged she had no meaningful dance aptitude and showed little or no improvement, and that the defendants knew or should have known this.
- Vokes sought rescission and restitution, alleging fraudulent misrepresentation, undue influence, and related equitable grounds.
- The trial court dismissed Vokes’s fourth amended complaint with prejudice for failure to state a cause of action.

## Issues

1. Whether alleged evaluations and assurances about a student’s dancing ability and progress—often treated as opinion or sales puffing—can constitute actionable misrepresentation when made by professionals with superior knowledge.
2. Whether the complaint’s allegations of deception, suppression of material truth, and undue influence were sufficient to state a claim for rescission and restitution and to survive a motion to dismiss.

## Decision

- The appellate court reversed the dismissal with prejudice and remanded for further proceedings.
- The court held the complaint sufficiently alleged actionable fraud and related equitable grounds.
- The court ruled that statements framed as opinions about ability and progress could be treated as misrepresentations of material fact under the circumstances alleged, given the defendants’ expertise and the alleged scheme to induce repeated purchases.

## Legal Principles

- Statements ordinarily categorized as opinion or “puffing” may be actionable as fraud when the speaker has superior knowledge, the recipient reasonably relies on that expertise, and the statements are made to deceive or accompanied by suppression of material truth.
- When a party with superior knowledge undertakes to provide evaluations, it must not provide affirmatively misleading half-truths; withholding candid information while giving false assurances can support a fraud theory.
- On a motion to dismiss, well-pleaded allegations are taken as true, and dismissal is improper where the alleged facts could support fraud, undue influence, and equitable rescission.

## Conclusion

The court reinstated the plaintiff’s claims, holding that the alleged pattern of knowingly false progress evaluations by expert instructors, used to induce excessive lesson contracts, could constitute fraud and support equitable relief rather than being dismissed as nonactionable sales talk.


Vokes v. Arthur Murray, Inc., 212 So. 2d 906 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2d Dist. 1968)