Restitution and unjust enrichment is the field of law relating to gains-based recovery. In contrast with damages (the law of compensation), restitution is a claim or remedy requiring a defendant to give up benefits wrongfully obtained. Liability for restitution is primarily governed by the "principle of unjust enrichment": A person who has been unjustly enriched at the expense of another is required to make restitution.
This principle derives from late Roman law, as stated in the Latin maxim attributed to Sextus Pomponius, Jure naturae aequum est neminem cum alterius detrimentum et injuria fieri locupletiorem ("By natural law it is just that no one should be enriched by another's loss or injury"). In civil law systems, it is also referred to as enrichment without cause or unjustified enrichment.
In pre-modern English common law, restitutionary claims were often brought in an action for assumpsit and later in a claim for money had and received. The seminal case giving a general theory for when restitution would be available is Lord Mansfield's decision in Moses v Macferlan (1760), which imported into the common law notions of...
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