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Sender:
Charles Mitchell
Date:
Thu, 6 Aug 1998 17:12:39 +0100
Re:
Enrichment and Ownership

 

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


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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" These messages are all © their authors. Nothing in them constitutes legal advice, to anyone, on any topic, least of all Restitution. Be warned that very few propositions in Restitution command universal agreement, and certainly not this one. Have a nice day! "


     
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