Restitution of Unjust Enrichment
Restitution is about how and when a claimant can compel a defendant to surrender an enrichment gained at the claimant’s expense. Long neglected, the subject has in recent years been one of the most exciting in the postgraduate curriculum. It draws its cases from areas of the law which have resisted rational analysis, largely because they have tenaciously preserved the language of an earlier age.
Common lawyers found themselves unable to escape from money had and received, money paid, and quantum meruit, while those on the chancery side became defensively fond of the unsolved mysteries of tracing and trusts arising by operation of law. In the result, down to earth questions about getting back money and value in other forms have been made to seem much more difficult than they need be. The aim of any course on restitution must be to try to understand what has really been going on and to play back that understanding to the courts in accessible modern language. These aims are helped by keeping an eye on the main lines of civilian solutions to the problems with which the common law has to wrestle.
Note that this course is concerned only with restitution of unjust enrichment. Restitution for wrongs is not part of the course and is dealt with in the Commercial remedies course.