The Principles Of The Law Of Restitution

This new textbook outlines the general principles of the rapidly developing subject of the Law of Restitution. Restitution is concerned with the reversing of unjust enrichment and was recently recognized as a discrete body of law by the House of Lords although restitutionary principles have in fact been evolving for over 200 years. Rather than taking the traditional approach which assumes that restitutionary remedies will be awarded against a defendant only where it can be shown that the defendant has been unjustly enriched at the expense of the plaintiff.The book asserts that the law of restitution is simply concerned with the question of when restitutionary remedies may be awarded, that is remedies which are assessed by reference to a benefit obtained by the defendant. But in determining whether restitutionary remedies are available it is necessary to identify the causes of the action which triggers them. There are three such causes of action, namely the reversal of the defendants unjust enrichment, the commission of a wrong by the defendant, and the vindication of the defendants property rights. The state of the law is examined through analyses of the statutory provisions and key cases demonstrating the way the law is used to resolve a wide variety of legal problems. The very different views of academics as to the nature and ambit of the subject are also identified. This book will be invaluable to students on restitution courses at every level.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 745-759) and index.

This new textbook outlines the general principles of the rapidly developing subject of the Law of Restitution. Restitution is concerned with the reversing of unjust enrichment and was recently recognized as a discrete body of law by the House of Lords although restitutionary principles havein fact been evolving for over 200 years. Rather than taking the traditional approach which assumes that restitutionary remedies will be awarded against a defendant only where it can be shown that the defendant has been unjustly enriched at the expense of the plaintiff.The book asserts that the law of restitution is simply concerned withthe question of when restitutionary remedies may be awarded, that is remedies which are assessed by reference to a benefit obtained by the defendant. But in determining whether restitutionary remedies are available it is necessary to identify the causes of the action which triggers them. There arethree such causes of action, namely the reversal of the defendants unjust enrichment, the commission of a wrong by the defendant, and the vindication of the defendants property rights. The state of the law is examined through analyses of the statutory provisions and key cases demonstrating the way the law is used to resolve a wide variety of legal problems. The very different views of academics as to the nature and ambit of the subject are also identified. This book should beinvaluable to students on restitution courses at every level.

"The law of restitution is a major branch of private law which is not well understood. This is the first book dedicated to the law of restitution in Snigapore providing an analysis of the principles of the law of restitution with reference to two distinct parts, namely, unjust enrichment and restitution for wrongs. The prevention of unjust enrichment as an independent legal principle, capable of founding causes of action, gained currency as an independent branch of the common law in Singapore only in the 1990s. This book introduces readers to the central concepts and controversies in the law of restitution, focusing on unjust enrichment and restitution for wrongs as organising themes. Leading decisions in Singapore and other Commonwealth jurisdictions are used to explain the fundamental concepts in the law of restitution" -- Back cover.

This new edition of a landmark study of the law of restitution has been substantially revised and updated. Concentrating on structural principles rather than detailed rules, the book is an invaluable guide to this difficult area of law.

Over the past decade, the High Court has repeatedly rejected the notion that there is a unifying principle of unjust enrichment at the plaintiff's expense, in contrast to the position in the UK. This book provides a vigorous and sustained justification for the Australian position, and demonstrates that the law in the UK has generated more fictions than it was ever thought to abolish. The law of restitution is shown to comprise several fundamentally distinct legal concepts which fill gaps in the law of contract and tort, and which have nothing in common beyond the historical accident that they arose out of the action of indebitatus assumpsit. These are (i) the recovery of non-voluntary payments (by mistake, duress, undue influence, unconscionable dealing and total failure of consideration); (ii) remuneration for goods or services requested by the defendant in circumstances indicating a promise to pay for them; and (iii) the protection of certain facilitative institutions of private law (such as private property and fiduciary relationships). The book staunchly defends the traditional common law approach of analysing legal principles by the empirical method of treating like cases alike, rather than by derivation from supposedly unifying theories. This edition updates the first edition, which was published in 1998, in the light of almost 20 years of case-law and academic debate. It also adds a separate chapter dealing with the history of the law of restitution and why it matters.

Restitution is the body of law concerned with taking away gains that someone has wrongfully obtained. The operator of a Ponzi scheme takes money from his victims by fraud and then invests it in stocks that rise in value. Or a company pays a shareholder excessive dividends or pays them to the wrong person. Or a man poisons his grandfather and then collects under the grandfather’s will. In each of these cases, one party is unjustly enriched at the expense of another. And in all of them the law of restitution provides a way to undo the enrichment and transfer the defendant’s gains to a party with better rights to them. Tort law focuses on the harm, or costs, that one party wrongfully imposes on another. Restitution is the mirror image; it corrects gains that one party wrongfully receives at another’s expense. It is an important topic for every lawyer and for anyone else interested in how the legal system responds to injustice. In Restitution, Ward Farnsworth presents a guide to this body of law that is compact, lively, and insightful—the first treatment of its kind that the American law of restitution has received. The book explains restitution doctrines, remedies, and defenses with unprecedented clarity and illustrates them with vivid examples. Farnsworth demonstrates that the law of restitution is guided by a manageable and coherent set of principles that have remarkable versatility and power. Restitution makes a complex and important area of law accessible, understandable, and interesting to any reader.