Summary Private Law 454 (Law of Unjustified Enrichment) Semester Notes 2020

Contents
1 Introduction........................................................................................................................................3
Basic Features of South African Enrichment Law...............................................................................3
The Constitutional Dimension..........................................................................................................11
2 General Requirements or Elements of Enrichment Liability.............................................................13
Introduction.....................................................................................................................................13
The Defendant Must be Enriched....................................................................................................13
Plaintiff must be Impoverished........................................................................................................15
Defendant must be Enriched at Plaintiff’s Expense.........................................................................17
Defendant must be Enriched without Legal Ground (Sine Causa)...................................................18
3 Enrichment Law and Related Disciplines..........................................................................................21
Introduction.....................................................................................................................................21
The Law of Contract: Contractual Restitutionary Claims.................................................................21
Remedies Provided by Property Law...............................................................................................33
Delictual Remedies..........................................................................................................................33
4 The Specific Enrichment Actions: Field of Application......................................................................35
Introduction.....................................................................................................................................35
First Category of Specific Actions: Enrichment by Transfer or Deliberately ‘Giving’ to Another with
a Purpose that Fails..........................................................................................................................36
The Transfer That is Not Owed/Undue: Condictio Indebiti..........................................................37
The Transfer Made for a Future Lawful Purpose, other than Fulfilling an Obligation: the
Condictio Causa Data Causa non Secuta......................................................................................73
The Transfer Made with an Unlawful Purpose.............................................................................82
Other Transfers without Legal Ground........................................................................................93
Second Category of Specific Actions: Enrichment Imposed on Another........................................115
Introduction...............................................................................................................................115
Unauthorised Improvements of Another’s Property.................................................................115
Unauthorised Payment of Another’s Debt.................................................................................131
Enrichment and the Extended Action Based on Manging Another’s Affairs..............................132
5 Third Category of Specific Actions: Enrichment by ‘Taking’ from Another.....................................135
Introduction...................................................................................................................................135
Examples........................................................................................................................................138
6 The Measure (Quantum) of Enrichment Liability............................................................................143
Introduction...................................................................................................................................143
Measuring the Defendant’s Enrichment........................................................................................144


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,Measuring Plaintiff’s Impoverishment...........................................................................................145
Exclusion of the Defence of Loss of Enrichment............................................................................146
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................149




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,1 INTRODUCTION
Basic Features of South African Enrichment Law
- Unusual concept
- Where does it fit in?
o Private law
- Relationship with other areas of the law as set out by Gaius in RDL
o Need to know what a person is, and then what type of relationships persons can
have
 Res
 Things of value
 Persons can have things of value
o Res (things of value)
 Tangible things
 Intangible things
 Obligation
o Duty to perform
o Arising from
 Contract
 Voluntary obligation to perform
 Delict
 Involuntary obligation to pay damages
 Other source
 Unjustified enrichment
o Obligation of restitution
o Does not arise from contract or
delict necessarily
o Arises by law
- Examples
o Have to pay R100 according to contract and accidentally pay R200
o People obtain funds as consequence of fraud or theft
o Improvement of another’s property by mistake
 Might think it is your property or think there is valid contract
- Terminology
o Unjustified enrichment
 No justification/basis
 Eg no valid contract
 Unjustified enrichment
 Not ‘unjust’ enrichment
 Not unfounded enrichment
 Law of restitution
 English law, not SA law
 Wrongful enrichment
 People aren’t necessarily liable for acting wrongfully
- Purpose/basis of enrichment liability
o Aristotle: types of justice
 Corrective justice

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,  Justice which is served by balancing out something or correcting
something
 Law of delict justified by this
o Somebody committed a wrongful act
o Justice served by compensation
 Flipside is to balance out gains that are unacceptable
o Example accidentally pay twice
 Distributive justice
 Justice in the way in which honours and benefits are distributed
within society
 Distribution of wealth, of honours, etc
 It would be just to give it to those who deserve it more than others
o Don’t give a millionaire a house
- How is it determined when to correct enrichment?
o Equitable discretion?
 Judges must decide when this obligation must be imposed by using an
equitable discretion
 Based on their idea of fair and equity
 Pomponius
 Articulated a broad principle that said it is fair that nobody should
be enriched at the detriment to another
 DuP 2 fn 8
 But has been accepted that this is not the answer to our question of
whether it is fair
 Just using fairness as standard is problematic
 If dad gives all inheritance to only one son, must that son give some
to the other son?
 Too uncertain
 How do you determine which values we receive has to be given to
someone else?
 Von Gierke
 Jurist who said that when you approach enrichment law you
approach the threshold of the most holy
o Area of law which has equitable purpose
o But not the way we approach things
o Rules: SA law
 Specific enrichment actions
 Eg condictio indebti
 General requirements/elements of enrichment liability
 Control function
 Have to always meet these general requirements
- No general enrichment action
o Unlike law of delict
 There is a general form of Aquilian liability
 Checklist of general requirements
 If you meet them, you have a claim in delict
o Should we have a general enrichment action? Why do we have specific actions?


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