Unjustified Enrichment: Key Issues in Comparative Perspective

Cambridge University Press, 4/18/2002
EAN 9780521808200, ISBN10: 0521808200

Hardcover, 792 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 4.8 cm
Language: English

Unjustified enrichment has been one of the most intellectually vital areas of private law. There is, however, still no unanimity among civil-law and common-law legal systems about how to structure this important branch of the law of obligations. Several key issues are considered comparatively in this 2002 book, including grounds for recovery of enrichment, defences, third-party enrichment, as well as proprietary and taxonomic questions. Two contributors deal with each topic, one a representative of a common-law system, the other a representative of a civil-law or mixed system. This approach illuminates not just similarities or differences between systems, but also what different systems can learn from one another. In an area of law whose territory is still partially uncharted and whose borders are contested, such comparative perspectives will be valuable for both academic analysis of the law and its development by the courts.

Part I
1. Introduction David Johnston and Reinhard Zimmermann
Part II. Enrichment 'Without Legal Ground' or Unjust-Factor Approach?
2. Unjust factors and legal grounds Sonja Meier
3. In defence of unjust factors Thomas Krebs
Part III. Failure of Consideration
4. Failure of consideration
myth and meaning in the English law of restitution Graham Virgo
5. Failure of consideration Robin Evans-Jones and Katrin Kruse
Part IV. Duress and Fraud
6. In defence of unjust factors
a study of rescission for duress, fraud and exploitation Mindy Chen-Wishart
7. Fraud, duress and unjustified enrichment
a civil law perspective Jacques du Plessis
Part V. Change of Position
8. Restitution without enrichment? Change of position and Wegfall der Bereicherung James Gordley
9. Unwinding mutual contracts
Restitio in integrum v the defence of change of position Philip Hellwege
Part VI. Illegality
10. The role of illegality in the English law of unjust enrichment Gerhard Dannemann
Part VII. Encroachment and Restitution for Wrongs
12. Reflections on the role of restitutionary damages to protect contractual expectations Janet O'Sullivan
13. Encroachments
between private and public Hanoch Dagan
Part VIII. Improvements
14. Mistaken improvements and the restitution calculus Andrew Kull
15. Enrichment by improvements in Scots law James Wolfe
Part IX. Discharge of Another Person's Debt
16. Performance of another's obligation
French and English law contrasted Simon Whittaker
17. Payment of another's debt Hector L. MacQueen
Part X. Third Party Enrichment
18. 'At the expense of the claimant'
direct and indirect enrichment in English law Peter Birks
19. Searches for silver bullets
enrichment in three-party situations Daniel Visser
Part XI. Proprietary Issues
20. Proprietary issues George Gretton
21. Property, subsidiarity, and unjust enrichment Lionel Smith
Part XII. Taxonomy
22. Taxonomy
does it matter? Ewan McKendrick
23. Rationality, nationality and the taxonomy of unjustified enrichment Niall R. Whitty.