Reconsidering the question of the link between the parties in Unjust Enrichment claims

Abstract

Much of the current debate in unjust enrichment scholarship revolves around two distinct problems. The first problem is identifying the kind of connection between claimant and defendant that suffices to support an unjust enrichment claim. The second problem is defining the scope and internal organisation of the rules and principles governing unjust enrichment as a unified part of English private law. These problems have tended to be considered in relative isolation from one another. The resulting picture is one of persisting uncertainty about the kind of connection supporting unjust enrichment claims and increasing scepticism about the convenience of treating the rules and principles governing these claims as forming a unified part of the law.

This thesis is an attempt to bring these problems together. Its main argument is that important differences between the scenarios where unjust enrichment claims have been recognised compel reconsideration of the conventional view that a single test may explain the qualifying connection in every possible case. Instead, it is suggested that English law will benefit from adopting a differentiated approach distinguishing situations where any of a diverse set of links may be enough to establish the requirements of a claim. By guiding our attention to the particularities of these situations without renouncing the benefits of an overall view of the rules and principles governing them, this approach may help dispel the uncertainty surrounding the scope of unjust enrichment liability and overcome some of the difficulties identified by detractors of the unjust enrichment analysis.