On the concept of general enrichment claim in some mixed legal systems

Abstract

It should be said that, historically, civilian and common law jurisdictions approached unjustified enrichment so differently that meaningful comparison seemed an almost impossibly difficult task. And though until recently one could say with some confidence that acceptance of a general principle against unjustified enrichment was one of the hallmarks of a Civilian system of law, the emergence in modern times of the concept of mixed legal systems increasingly raises again discussions about whether or not the law of unjustified enrichment should be systemized by accepting or not a general clause. For their comparative, jurisprudential and historical interest as systems in which the traditions of the Common Law and the Civil Law have interacted and intermingled over centuries, and, more recently, as possible sources of inspiration, some solutions in mixed-legal systems, concerning the general enrichment claim, are discussed in the present article. A conclusion is driven that without exception, the origins of enrichment law in the major mixed systems - which here I shall take to be Israel, Brazil, Louisiana, Quebec, Scotland and South Africa - lie in the Civil Law tradition. And thus the legislative experience in those mixed legal systems serves us as an argument in favour of the idea that the modern civilian approach in the law of unjustified enrichment is the acceptance of a general clause with confined field of operation through the originally French concept of "subsidiarity".

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