The State of the Law of Unjust Enrichment in Common Law Canada

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lionel Smith
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Unjust Enrichment ◽  
The Law

“Farewell to Unjustified Enrichment?” – A Common Law Response

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 326-337
Author(s):  
Steve Hedley
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
German Law ◽  
Unjust Enrichment ◽  
Level Of Abstraction ◽  
The Law ◽  
Unjustified Enrichment ◽  
High Level ◽  
Logical Process

In this article, Professor Steve Hedley offers a Common Law response to he recently published arguments of Professor Nils Jansen on the German law of unjustified enrichment (as to which, see Jansen, “Farewell to Unjustified Enrichment” (2016) 20 EdinLR 123). The author takes the view that Jansen's paper provided a welcome opportunity to reconsider not merely what unjust enrichment can logically be, but what it is for. He argues that unjust enrichment talk contributes little of value, and that the supposedly logical process of stating it at a high level of abstraction, and then seeking to deduce the law from that abstraction, merely distracts lawyers from the equities of the cases they consider.

The Law of Contract

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Steiner
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
World Market ◽  
Contract Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Legal Certainty ◽  
Philosophical Foundations ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law

This chapter examines the law of contract in France and discusses the milestone reform of French contract law. While this new legislation introduces a fresh equilibrium between the contracting parties and enhances accessibility and legal certainty in contract, it does not radically change the state of the law in this area. In addition, it does not strongly impact the traditional philosophical foundations of the law of contract. The reform, in short, looks more like a tidying up operation rather than a far-reaching transformation of the law. Therefore, the chapter argues that it is questionable whether the new law, which was also intended to increase France's attractiveness against the background of a world market dominated by the Common Law, will keep its promise.

From Liberties to Liberty

2020 ◽  
pp. 105-130
Author(s):  
Charlotte Epstein
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Common Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
The Political ◽  
Habeas Corpus ◽  
House Church ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Individual Body

This chapter studies how liberty in the law evolved from being attached to a collective, metaphorical body—the medieval corporation—to being rooted instead in the individual body across a range of practices in seventeenth century Europe. It analyses the early modern forms of toleration that developed from the ground-up in Protestant Europe (Holland and Germany in particular), including the practices of ‘walking out’ (auslauf) to worship one’s God, and the house church (schuilkerk). These practices were key to delinking liberty from place, and thus to paving the way to attaching it instead to territory and the state. The chapter also considers the first common law of naturalisation, known as Calvin’s Case (1608), which wrote into the law the process of becoming an English subject—of subjection. This law decisively rooted the state-subject relation in the bodies of monarch and subject coextensively. Both of these bodies were deeply implicated in the process of territorialisation that begat the modern state in seventeenth-century England, and in shifting the political bond from local authorities to the sovereign. The chapter then examines the corporeal processes underwriting the centralisation of authority, and shows how the subject’s body also became—via an increasingly important habeas corpus—the centre point of the legal revolution that yielded the natural rights of the modern political subject. Edward Coke plays a central role in the chapter.

Liberty and the Common Law

1945 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lord Wright
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Case System ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Right

In preparing the few and elementary observations which I am about to make to you tonight I have wondered if the title I chose was apt or suitable. The Common Law is generally described as the law of liberty, of freedom and of free peoples. It was a home-made product. In the eighteenth century, foreign lawyers called it an insular and barbarous system; they compared it to their own system of law, developed on the basis of Roman and Civil Law. Many centuries before, and long after Bracton's day, when other civilised European nations ‘received’ the Roman Law, England held back and stood aloof from the Reception. It must have been a near thing. It seems there could have been a Reception here if the Judges had been ecclesiastics, steeped in the Civil Law. But as it turned out they were laymen, and were content as they travelled the country, and in London as well, to adopt what we now know as the Case System, instead of the rules and categories of the Civil Law. Hence the method of threshing out problems by debate in Court, and later on the basis of written pleadings which we find in the Year Books. For present purposes, all I need observe is that the Civil Lawyer had a different idea of the relation of the state or the monarch to the individual from that of the Common Lawyer. To the Civil or Roman Lawyer, the dominant maxim was ‘quod placuit principi legis habet vigorem’; law was the will of the princeps. With this may be compared the rule expressed in Magna Carta in 1215: No freeman, it was there said, was to be taken or imprisoned or exiled or in any way destroyed save by the lawful judgment of his peers and by the law of the land. Whatever the exact application of that phrase in 1215, it became a text for fixing the relations between the subject and the State. Holdsworth quotes from the Year Book of 1441; the law is the highest English inheritance the King hath, for by the law he and all his subjects are ruled. That was the old medieval doctrine that all things are governed by law, either human or divine. That is the old doctrine of the supremacy of the law, which runs through the whole of English history, and which in the seventeenth century won the day against the un-English doctrine of the divine right of Kings and of their autocratic power over the persons and property of their subjects. The more detailed definition of what all that involved took time to work out. I need scarcely refer to the great cases in the eighteenth century in which the Judges asserted the right of subjects to freedom from arbitrary arrest as against the ministers of state and against the validity of a warrant to seize the papers of a person accused of publishing a seditious libel; in particular Leach v. Money (1765) 19 St. Tr. 1001; Entick v. Carrington (1765) 19 St. Tr. 1029; Wilkes v. Halifax (1769) 19 St. Tr. 1406. In this connexion may be noted Fox's Libel Act, 1792, which dealt with procedure, but fixed a substantive right to a trial by jury of the main issue in the cases it referred to.

WHAT IS “LAWYERING”? THE CHALLENGE OF TAXONOMY

2006 ◽  
Vol 65 (3) ◽  
pp. 549-578
Author(s):  
Joachim Dietrich
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
Late Professor ◽  
Unjust Enrichment ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Law

OVER the past few years, an important legal debate has been raging, the full effects of which many lawyers have not yet felt. I am referring to the taxonomy debate and, specifically, the attempts by the late Professor Peter Birks and (the mainly academic) supporters and advocates of his and similar views to impose a coherent and logical taxonomy upon private (common) law. Much more attention should be paid to sound taxonomy, it is argued. This “great project” has been little noticed outside the backwater of the law in which it began, namely the law of restitution (or “unjust enrichment” as the theorists here under consideration would prefer).

Sinclair v. Brougham

1938 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-326
Author(s):  
Lord Wright
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Common Law ◽  
The Public ◽  
Unjust Enrichment ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
A Company ◽  
Rate Importance

The case of Sinclair v. Brougham has been generally regarded as an authority of first-rate importance. I think it has been properly so regarded, though my reasons for so thinking may not altogether agree with the reasons emphasized by some lawyers. I regard the case as primarily significant as embodying the leading principles on which the Court acts in exercising its equitable jurisdiction to give relief in order to prevent unjust enrichment, or to achieve restitution, if we accept the useful term which has been employed in the recently published American Restatement of the Law of Restitution. The word itself is only an echo of language which will be found in English judgments, indeed, in this very case of Sinclair v. Brougham. The case shows how the Court can do justice by applying equitable principles where the Common Law would have been powerless. But since every Court is now bound in the same proceeding to apply either law or equity or both as the circumstances may require, the distinction between law and equity is now only important in the sense that the differences of method and rules must be observed. In the case we are considering a company had borrowed money for purposes for which it was ultra vires for it to borrow. There could in law be no claim for money lent and no claim in law for the repayment on the ground of quasi-contract or, to use the now obsolete phrase, contract ‘implied in law’, because to allow such a claim as a merely money claim would be to sanction an evasion of the public policy forbidding ultra vires borrowing by companies. Further, as the money lent or its products could not be identified in the company's possessions, a claim in law could not be maintained. But the powers of the Court were not exhausted. The problem was further complicated by the conflicting claims of the shareholders.

created by the common law rule were addressed by Parliament in the Law Reform (Frustrated Contracts) Act 1943, considered below, but the unjust enrichment principle is also relevant in other respects in determining whether a particular event is capable of frustrating a contract. If the decision to treat a contract as frustrated might give one of the parties an undue advantage this may operate as a justification for refusing to treat the contract as frustrated. For example, in Tamplin SS Co v Anglo-Mexican Petroleum Products Co Ltd, an oil tanker was chartered for a period of five years, but was subject to government requisition when the charterparty still had nearly three years to run. In the circumstances, there was no prejudice to the charterers, since the government compensation payable to the charterers exceeded the agreed hire charges. However, the owners of the ship claimed that the contract was frustrated. The House of Lords held, by a narrow majority, that the contract was not frustrated. One explanation for the action of the owners is that they wanted to secure the increased benefit of the government compensation in replacement for the lower hire charges. In this case, it is readily understandable that the majority of the House of Lords preferred not to allow the owners to benefit in this way at the expense of the charterers. Remedies, unjust enrichment and frustration Money paid or payable before the date of frustration

1995 ◽  
pp. 382-382
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
Petroleum Products ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Unjust Enrichment ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Government ◽  
Undue Advantage ◽  
Oil Tanker

Development of Criminal Law in Israel During the 25 Years of its Existence

1974 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 568-579
Author(s):  
Gabriel Bach
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Criminal Code ◽  
The State ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
The Creation ◽  
English Law ◽  
The Law ◽  
Council Of State ◽  
State Of Israel

A few days after the State of Israel was established in 1948 a law was passed by the Provisional Council of State which enacted, that the law in force in Palestine on the eve of the creation of the new State should remain in force in Israel, with such modification as the establishment of the State and its organs rendered necessary, until varied or revoked by the legislative organs of the State.That meant, in effect, that as far as Criminal Law and Procedure were concerned, the rules of English law were retained by the State of Israel.The substantive criminal law, the Criminal Code Ordinance, as enacted by the British Mandatory Administration for Palestine, is still in force in Israel, except for those parts that have been repealed or amended by the Israel legislature. This Ordinance was enacted in 1936 and constitutes an attempt to codify the English Common law. Similar laws were passed by the British Colonial Administrations in Sudan (1924) and in Cyprus (1929).Under one of the provisions of this Ordinance, the Code and the expressions used in it have to be interpreted and construed in accordance with the rules of English law and interpretation.

scholarly journals The Canadian Principle of Unjust Enrichment: Comparative Insights into the Law of Restitution

1969 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mitchell McInnes
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
Relative Lack ◽  
Unjust Enrichment ◽  
The Law

In this article, the author explores the principle of unjust enrichment as formulated by courts of common law jurisdictions in Canada. He analyzes and assesses that principle in light of comparable principles applied in England, Australia and Quebec. He argues that while sound in many respects, the Canadian principle of unjust enrichment often is characterized by a relative lack of analytical rigour. He concludes by suggesting that Canadian courts might profitably consider the approaches adopted in other jurisdictions.

scholarly journals Hukum dan Keadilan Sosial dalam Perspektif Hukum Ketatanegaraan

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 849
Author(s):  
Ahmad Fadlil Sumadi
Keyword(s):  
Islamic Law ◽  
Common Law ◽  
State Institution ◽  
The State ◽  
Human Interaction ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
State Legislation ◽  
Major Function ◽  
Religious Law ◽  
The Law

Law in this discussion is the law that is deliberately formed (by designed) by  the state, not the law that occurs naturally in the society, which constitute the crystallization of human interaction within the society as the subject of law.  Law is known as the common law or customary law and the second is the religious law, in particular, Islam with its Islamic law. The process of formation of common law or customary law is from the bottom upward (bottom-up process) while the establishment of islamic law is from top to bottom (top-down). The same as the nature of the process of formation of Islamic law is the in question in this discussion, which is the law called state legislation, or which is also usually known as laws and regulations. The only difference is, Islamic law is made by God, Allah SWT,  while the maker of statutory laws is a state institution of which the major function is to make laws (legislative power). Legislation is interrelated to with humanity and justice, both in the establishment, implementation, and enforcement. This can be proven by tracing since the establishment of the state, particularly Indonesia, because the law is one of the implementation of state functions. State is established on the basis of motivation associated with humanity and justice, so that the objectives and the foundations are also related to humanity and justice. The State and the law is  an instrument of humanity and justice, therefore, state and law must be related to humanity and justice, and thus, also would not be enough in the instrumental perspective, the state and the law itself without humanity and justice in serving the society.

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