Book Description

Excerpt from Selected Cases on the Law of Quasi-Contracts This volume is intended to contain a representative selection of cases upon the large and important group of legal duties embraced in the term quasi-contract, and to afford material for the study and discussion of the principles regulating recovery in that class of cases, as those principles are found implicated with, and working upon, the actual facts of decided cases. For the historical development of the law of quasi-contracts, the student is referred to the masterly History of Assumpsit, by Professor Ames, which he has kindly permitted to be republished as an appendix to this volume. The primary division of the work into three parts was determined by the broad classification first given by Professor Ames in his History of Assumpsit, and adopted by Professor Keener in the introductory chapter to his Treatise on Quasi-Contracts. However, by far the greater part of the subject is comprised in Part III, under the general doctrine of "Unjust Enrichment," and the arrangement employed by the present editor for this part, while not the only feasible grouping, will, it is hoped, be practically satisfactory. As Dr. Johnson says in his essay on Pope: "Of two or more positions depending upon some remote or general principle, there is seldom any cogent reason why one should precede the other;" and so, while the cases in Part III depend upon the very general principle of "Unjust Enrichment," and while a cogent reason cannot always be given why some of these positions should precede others, nevertheless the special correlation of analogous topics has been the guide to the present arrangement. It may be added that the only essay at a completely developed classification of the law of quasi-contracts which has thus far been published, is the one offered tentatively by Professor Wigmore, in 25 American Laiv Reznezv, 695 (1891). About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.