PVL3704
Assignment 1 Semester 1 2026
Unique number:
Due Date: 20 March 2026
Detailed solutions, explanations, workings
and references.
+27 81 278 3372
, QUESTION 1
The requirement that the defendant’s enrichment must have been at the expense of
the plaintiff means that there must be a causal link between the plaintiff’s
impoverishment and the defendant’s enrichment.1 It is not enough that one party is
enriched and another impoverished; the enrichment must result directly or sufficiently
closely from the impoverishment. In most cases this requirement is easily satisfied,
for example where money or property moves directly from the plaintiff’s estate to the
defendant’s estate.2 Difficulties arise mainly in cases of indirect enrichment, where
an intermediary stands between the impoverished plaintiff and the enriched
defendant.
The problem of indirect enrichment typically occurs where A contracts with B and
performs in terms of that contract, but the benefit of the performance accrues to C.
The question then is whether C is enriched at the expense of A or at the expense of
B. De Vos argues that the juridical relationship between A and C is unaffected by B’s
inability to pay, and that C is enriched at B’s expense, not A’s.3 On this view, A’s
remedy lies against B only, even if B is insolvent.
1
PVL3704 Study Guide (2020) 56.
2
Jacques du Plessis Unjustified Enrichment in South African Law (Juta 2012) 45.
3
D J de Vos Verrykingsaanspreeklikheid in die Suid-Afrikaanse Reg (3 edn Butterworths 1987) 156.
Varsity Cube 2026 +27 81 278 3372
Assignment 1 Semester 1 2026
Unique number:
Due Date: 20 March 2026
Detailed solutions, explanations, workings
and references.
+27 81 278 3372
, QUESTION 1
The requirement that the defendant’s enrichment must have been at the expense of
the plaintiff means that there must be a causal link between the plaintiff’s
impoverishment and the defendant’s enrichment.1 It is not enough that one party is
enriched and another impoverished; the enrichment must result directly or sufficiently
closely from the impoverishment. In most cases this requirement is easily satisfied,
for example where money or property moves directly from the plaintiff’s estate to the
defendant’s estate.2 Difficulties arise mainly in cases of indirect enrichment, where
an intermediary stands between the impoverished plaintiff and the enriched
defendant.
The problem of indirect enrichment typically occurs where A contracts with B and
performs in terms of that contract, but the benefit of the performance accrues to C.
The question then is whether C is enriched at the expense of A or at the expense of
B. De Vos argues that the juridical relationship between A and C is unaffected by B’s
inability to pay, and that C is enriched at B’s expense, not A’s.3 On this view, A’s
remedy lies against B only, even if B is insolvent.
1
PVL3704 Study Guide (2020) 56.
2
Jacques du Plessis Unjustified Enrichment in South African Law (Juta 2012) 45.
3
D J de Vos Verrykingsaanspreeklikheid in die Suid-Afrikaanse Reg (3 edn Butterworths 1987) 156.
Varsity Cube 2026 +27 81 278 3372
