John of course is right.

But I'm not happy with the principle of recovery. This is a new form of an old problem, namely indirect enrichment. The classic situation is this: A pays $1,000 to B by mistake, whereupon B as a result makes a gift of a different $1,000 to C. A number of restitution scholars are quite happy to say A can sue C: but this seems to me to raise problems. The money received by C was B's to deal with as B thought fit: I think it's contrary to principle to say that C's ability to keep it should depend on the state of accounts between A and B. Similarly here: MM paid Dollar for services rendered out of its own monies. The fact that it wouldn't have paid Dollar but for its having been unjustly enriched at the expense of the plaintiffs ought to be irrelevant.

Andrew

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Andrew Tettenborn MA LLB
Bracton Professor of Law
University of Exeter, England

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LAWYER, n. One skilled in circumvention of the law (Ambrose Bierce, 1906).