Justifying the Law of Unjust Enrichment
22 Pages Posted: 25 Nov 2015
Date Written: November 24, 2001
Abstract
The scope and status of unjust enrichment law are uncertain because the standard account of the subject raises a significant normative question. Specifically, the standard account appears inconsistent with broadly-held views about how private law should operate. In this essay, I examine what Peter Birks, Lionel Smith, and Hanoch Dagan (three contributors to the Symposium in which this essay appears) say, or don’t say, about this normative question. I then propose an alternative answer to the normative question, one that argues, inter alia, that there is no duty to reverse unjust enrichments.
Keywords: restitution, unjust enrichment, remedies
JEL Classification: K10, K12, K40
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation