18 Facts About Unjust enrichment

In laws of equity, unjust enrichment occurs when one person is enriched at the expense of another in circumstances that the law sees as unjust.

Liability for an unjust enrichment arises irrespective of wrongdoing on the part of the recipient.

Law of unjust enrichment is closely related to, but not co-extensive with, the law of restitution.

Restitution for unjust enrichment is a subset of the law of restitution in the same way that compensation for breach of contract is a subset of the law relating to compensation.

Unjust enrichment is not to be confused with illicit enrichment, which is a legal concept referring to the enjoyment of an amount of wealth by a person that is not justified by reference to their lawful income.

Related searches

Coherent concept of unjustified enrichment then appeared in the Justinian Code, based on Roman pragmatism with equitable considerations and moral principles of Greek philosophy.

Further, the actio de in rem verso gradually expanded to cover instances in which third parties were enriched at the expense of the impoverished obligee, and unjustified enrichment was recognized as a source of obligations under the heading of "quasi-contract".

Domat developed the French unjustified enrichment principles based on the actio de in rem verso, as well as a modified version of the Roman concept of causa, which renders contracts actionable even when they are not normally recognized under Roman law.

In contrast, the concept of unjustified enrichment is considerably broader and more frequently invoked in Germany and Greece to address issues of restitution as well as restoration for failed juridical acts.

The framework provides a useful taxonomical function in Australian law, though the concept of unjust enrichment has been subject to inconsistent treatment by Australian courts, as discussed below.

Remedy for unjust enrichment is restitution: the restoration of what was conferred to the claimant.

Whether there is a distinct body of law in Australia known as the law of unjust enrichment is a highly controversial question.

The equitable basis for the action for money had and received has instead been emphasised and in Australian Financial v Hills [2014] HCA 14 the plurality held that the concept of unjust enrichment was effectively 'inconsistent' with the law of restitution as it had developed in Australia.

Acceptance of the unjust enrichment has been confirmed multiple times in Belgium by the Court of Cassation, which has ruled that the unjust enrichment is a general principle of law.

The most crucial of these was Shilliday v Smith, in which Lord Roger essentially laid the bedrock for what is considered modern Scots unjustified enrichment law, bringing together the fragmented law into one framework, drawing from the principles of Roman Law upon which Scots Law as a whole is based.

Unjustified enrichment is more established as a fundamental part of the Scots law of obligations than unjust enrichment is in English law.

Doctrine of unjust enrichment was definitively established as a fully fledged course of action in Canada in Pettkus v Becker, 1980 CanLII 22, [1980] 2 SCR 834.

Remedy for unjust enrichment is frequently an imposition of constructive trust over the property unjustly retained.