UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA (UNISA)
College of Law
⋄
Enrichment Liability and Estoppel
Assignment: Sine Causa and the Condictio Indebiti
⋄
Module Code: PVL3704
Module Name: Enrichment Liability and Estoppel
Assignment No: 1
Assignment: Sine Causa / Condictio Indebiti Problem
Question
Semester: 2 2026
Due: 17 August 2026
Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for Enrichment
Liability and Estoppel at the University of South Africa.
, UNISA | PVL3704 Enrichment Liability and Estoppel
Question 1: The Sine Causa Requirement
South African law does not recognise a single, generalised action for unjustified enrichment.
Instead, a plaintiff who wishes to reclaim a benefit conferred on another must bring the claim
under one of the recognised condictiones, or persuade a court to extend one of them by anal-
ogy.1 Whichever condictio is relied upon, four general requirements must be established: the
defendant must have been enriched, the plaintiff must have been impoverished, the enrich-
ment must have taken place at the plaintiff’s expense, and the enrichment must have been
sine causa, that is, without a legal ground justifying the defendant in retaining the benefit.2
The fourth requirement, sine causa, is the focus of this discussion.
1.1 Meaning of Sine Causa
A transfer or benefit is sine causa when there is no contract, statutory provision, judgment, or
other recognised legal basis entitling the recipient to keep it. The requirement captures the
basic idea that the law of enrichment intervenes only where retention of a benefit cannot be
justified; where a valid contract, donation, or other causa underlies the transfer, no enrichment
claim arises, however much the recipient may in a lay sense have "benefited".
The difficulty in South African law is that the courts have never fully settled whether sine
causa should be understood as an independent, free-standing test applied afresh in every
case, or whether it is simply shorthand for the specific requirements of whichever condic-
tio the plaintiff invokes.3 This distinction matters because South African enrichment law is
still built, historically, around four discrete condictiones, each with its own narrow, techni-
cal requirements: the condictio indebiti (a transfer made in discharge of a debt that did not
exist), the condictio causa data causa non secuta (a transfer made for a purpose that subse-
quently failed), the condictio ob turpem vel iniustam causam (a transfer made for an unlawful
or immoral purpose), and the condictio sine causa specialis, a residual claim available where
enrichment has occurred without legal ground but the facts do not fit any of the other three
condictiones.4
1
McCarthy Retail Ltd v Shortdistance Carriers CC 2001 (3) SA 482 (SCA).
2
JC Sonnekus Unjustified Enrichment in South African Law (LexisNexis 2008) 32.
3
See generally the discussion in H Scott, Rationalising the South African Law of Enrichment (2014) Edinburgh
Law Review, tracing this debate.
4
Studocu (University of Pretoria) Condictio Indebiti: Leading Cases (2022), summarising the four traditional
condictiones.
Page 1 of 8
College of Law
⋄
Enrichment Liability and Estoppel
Assignment: Sine Causa and the Condictio Indebiti
⋄
Module Code: PVL3704
Module Name: Enrichment Liability and Estoppel
Assignment No: 1
Assignment: Sine Causa / Condictio Indebiti Problem
Question
Semester: 2 2026
Due: 17 August 2026
Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for Enrichment
Liability and Estoppel at the University of South Africa.
, UNISA | PVL3704 Enrichment Liability and Estoppel
Question 1: The Sine Causa Requirement
South African law does not recognise a single, generalised action for unjustified enrichment.
Instead, a plaintiff who wishes to reclaim a benefit conferred on another must bring the claim
under one of the recognised condictiones, or persuade a court to extend one of them by anal-
ogy.1 Whichever condictio is relied upon, four general requirements must be established: the
defendant must have been enriched, the plaintiff must have been impoverished, the enrich-
ment must have taken place at the plaintiff’s expense, and the enrichment must have been
sine causa, that is, without a legal ground justifying the defendant in retaining the benefit.2
The fourth requirement, sine causa, is the focus of this discussion.
1.1 Meaning of Sine Causa
A transfer or benefit is sine causa when there is no contract, statutory provision, judgment, or
other recognised legal basis entitling the recipient to keep it. The requirement captures the
basic idea that the law of enrichment intervenes only where retention of a benefit cannot be
justified; where a valid contract, donation, or other causa underlies the transfer, no enrichment
claim arises, however much the recipient may in a lay sense have "benefited".
The difficulty in South African law is that the courts have never fully settled whether sine
causa should be understood as an independent, free-standing test applied afresh in every
case, or whether it is simply shorthand for the specific requirements of whichever condic-
tio the plaintiff invokes.3 This distinction matters because South African enrichment law is
still built, historically, around four discrete condictiones, each with its own narrow, techni-
cal requirements: the condictio indebiti (a transfer made in discharge of a debt that did not
exist), the condictio causa data causa non secuta (a transfer made for a purpose that subse-
quently failed), the condictio ob turpem vel iniustam causam (a transfer made for an unlawful
or immoral purpose), and the condictio sine causa specialis, a residual claim available where
enrichment has occurred without legal ground but the facts do not fit any of the other three
condictiones.4
1
McCarthy Retail Ltd v Shortdistance Carriers CC 2001 (3) SA 482 (SCA).
2
JC Sonnekus Unjustified Enrichment in South African Law (LexisNexis 2008) 32.
3
See generally the discussion in H Scott, Rationalising the South African Law of Enrichment (2014) Edinburgh
Law Review, tracing this debate.
4
Studocu (University of Pretoria) Condictio Indebiti: Leading Cases (2022), summarising the four traditional
condictiones.
Page 1 of 8
