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I am a student in this area and would appreciate guidance to the following problem.

I am trying to square Lord Brandon's judgment in The Aliakmon with the law of restitution. As all of you are no doubt well aware, Lord Brandon held that to enable a person to claim in negligence for loss caused to him by reason or damage to property, he must have had either legal ownership of a possessory title to the property. It is not enough for him to have only had contractual rights in relation to such property which had been adversely affected by the damage.

The scenario I am thinking of is this. Suppose I am the buyer of some goods where the contract states that risk has already passed to me but not the property even though I have already have paid the purchase price. In other words I have contractual rights to the goods. A rogue comes and misappropriate and take the goods. I go to the seller and the seller says "tough luck" risks has passed to you and I am not going to lend you my name to sue the rogue and there is nothing in the contract that says I can compel him to do the same. In such a case I would not be able to sue for conversion following the case of the Aliakmon. In such a case:

(1)would I be able to sue for unjust enrichment?

(2)If not, why?

(3)If the reason is because I do not have title to the goods, how does that square in with Professor Birks' argument that property is merely a response and not an event?

I look forward to your response on the above.

Regards

Tang Hang Wu