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Sender:
Charles Mitchell
Date:
Thu, 6 Aug 1998 14:28:09 +0100
Re:
Was Banks Overcharging Customers

 

Robert Stevens writes:

Whether the omission of any specific provision [in the Limitation Act 1980] dealing with unjustified enrichment was deliberate is probably incapable of being given an answer. I have not checked Hansard.

At 1st instance in Westdeutsche (more accurately, in the Sandwell action) the plaintiffs argued that s 5 did not cover non-contractual claims for restitution, and that the 1980 Act prescribed no limitation period for such claims. At [1994] 4 All ER 890, 943, Hobhouse J held that this argument ran counter to the general purpose of the Act and rendered the wording of s 5 ambiguous. Pepper v Hart therefore allowed him to look in Hansard, where he discovered that in 1938 and 1939 the Solicitor-General had expressly said that the old 1939 Act was intended to implement the 1936 interim report of the 1936 Law Revision Committee, which committee had expressly included 'quasi-contract' alongside simple contract. Hobhouse J therefore concluded that s 5 applied to claims like the plaintiffs' in respect of money had and received.

It follows that the 1980 Act does in fact cover that portion of the law of unjust enrichment which fell within the scope of 'quasi-contract' as that category was understood by the Law Revision Cttee in 1936. Presumably the cttee did not regard it as including the many equitable claims which do not fall within the ambit of the 1980 Act - as RS rightly points out.

 

Charles

 

Dr Charles Mitchell
Lecturer in Law
School of Law
King's College London
Strand
LONDON WC2R 2LS

tel: 0171 873 2290
fax: 0171 873 2465


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