In my humble view, the continuing existence of the debt is far from "uninteresting". While no action can be taken to enforce the debt, the time-honoured position has it that - IF the debt is paid, (or IF money comes into the hands of the creditor, against which he or she seeks to set off an amount in respect of the debt) the law will accept that. The debt is then discharged, but only then. Expiry of limitations periods prevents enforcement action, but does not discharge the debt.

The interest for unjust enrichment scholarship seems to me to be the continuing, but unenforceable nature of the debt, which will prevent an action to recover what might otherwise appear to be an unjust enrichment. The situation on which this thread was originally based might be difficult to assign to one or other of the categories we tend to use in debate, but it is absolutely certain that there is no recovery.

The law must be telling us that such an enrichment is not "unjust". The interesting problem, therefore, is; how do we ensure that the analysis of the recovery rights in respect of unjust enrichments does not falsely encourage us to allow recovery here - whether for mistake of law or otherwise. Will "Natural Obligations" be the right label?

Paul

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