![]() |
RDG
online Restitution Discussion Group Archives |
||||||||||||
![]() |
![]() |
||||||||||||
|
Since no-one
seems to have anything better to do today than read their RDG messages (it's
a beautiful, blazing hot day in London at the moment - why aren't I outside
sunbathing?), may I briefly return your attention to Eoin's comments last
week on the 29th, on the subject of the enrichingness of the receipt and
possession of money? At one point in his message, Eoin said:
'He may never have owned the money, but that does not
change the fact that he has been benefited and thus enriched by its receipt.'
This turned my mind to something I discussed with Frank
Rose recently, in connection with the award of interest in restitutionary
cases, and Lords Goff and Woolf's comments on this subject in Westdeutsche.
Lords G and W make it plain in their speeches that they regard the user
value of money - ie the benefit of having it over time - as enriching
in itself. Hence, if X pays Y £100 by mistake, and then keeps it
for a year, and X is then held to be entitled to recover it via an action
for unjust enrichment, the measure of Y's enrichment is £100 + the
value of having £100 for a year. This leads me to ask three questions:
i) Is the user value an incontrovertible benefit - ie must its value
always be set by reference to current bank lending rates, or is there
room for arguments either by Y that he is a billionaire with more money
than he could ever have use for, so that the value of having the £100
to him is as nothing, or by X, that Y needed exactly that sum to take
up a once in a lifetime business opportunity and couldn't have borrowed
the money elsewhere because he was such a bad credit risk, so that the
value of having the £100 was greater for him than for others?
ii) If user value is enriching, why is it dealt with at the interest
stage, and not as a substantive part of X's claim? Mason and Carter develop
an argument that it should be dealt with as part of the enrichment component
in an unjust enrichment claim at para 2807. Are they right?
iii) Is money enriching in other ways, besides a) the spending power
it confers on its owner/possessor and b) the user value discussed above?
One comes to mind - the appearance of owning it can itself be enriching
if it leads others to assess you as a better credit risk than is in fact
the case.
That's it. I'm off home to watch the cricket.
Charles
<== Previous message Back to index Next message ==> |
||||||||||||
![]() |
![]() |
» » » » » |
|
![]() |
|||||||||
![]() |