“Testing the Boundaries of Conversion:
Account-Holders, Intangible Property and Economic Harm”
[2012] Lloyd’s Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly
(co-authored with Amy Goymour) [FORTHCOMING]
'Direct Transfers in the Law of Unjust Enrichment’ (2011) 64 Current
Legal Problems 435
For a claim to lie in unjust
enrichment, the law requires that the defendant's
enrichment must have been gained ‘at the claimant's
expense’. A popular account of this requirement, as
it applies to personal claims, holds that as a
general rule the law of unjust enrichment only
reverses ‘direct’ transfers of value. There are good
reasons why the law should not reverse many
‘indirect’ transfers, and some significant problems
would be created if the law did so. Nevertheless, it
is argued that these concerns do not require the
courts to restrict the law's remedial potential by a
categorical ‘direct transfer’ rule. They would do
better to adopt a ‘but for’ causal test to identify
qualifying transfers of value, leaving the task of
liability containment to be tackled, in a better
focused way, by other means. The article is solely
concerned with the issues raised by personal claims
in unjust enrichment; proprietary claims raise
additional issues that are not considered.
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‘Justifying Grounds: Contract’, ch 3 in C Mitchell, P Mitchell
and S Watterson, Goff and Jones – The Law of Unjust Enrichment (8th edn,
Sweet and Maxwell, 2011) (co-authored with Paul Mitchell) [see above]
‘At the Claimant’s Expense: Personal Claims’, ch 6 in C
Mitchell, P Mitchell and S Watterson, Goff and Jones – The Law of Unjust
Enrichment (8th edn, Sweet and Maxwell, 2011) (co-authored with Charles
Mitchell) [see above]
‘Lack of Consent and Want of Authority’, ch 8 in C Mitchell, P
Mitchell and S Watterson, Goff and Jones – The Law of Unjust Enrichment
(8th edn, Sweet and Maxwell, 2011) [see above]
‘Mistake’, ch 9 in C Mitchell, P Mitchell and S Watterson,
Goff and Jones – The Law of Unjust Enrichment (8th edn, Sweet and Maxwell,
2011) [see above]
‘Proprietary Remedies: Subrogation to Extinguished Rights’, ch
39 in C Mitchell, P Mitchell and S Watterson, Goff and Jones – The Law of
Unjust Enrichment (8th edn, Sweet and Maxwell, 2011) [see above]
'Remedies for Knowing Receipt', ch 4 in C
Mitchell (ed), Constructive and Resulting Trusts
(Hart Publishing, 2010), co-authored with Charles Mitchell
In the twelve essays collected in this
volume, the authors shed new light on various aspects of the
law governing constructive and resulting trusts, revisiting
current controversies, bringing new historical material to
the fore, and offering new theoretical perspectives.
click here for publisher's site
'Carter v Boehm (1766)', ch 3 in C Mitchell
and P Mitchell, Landmark Cases in the Law of Contract
(Hart Publishing, 2008)
'New Light on Contribution Between Marine Insurers?' [2005]
Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly 338
'Subrogation and Recoupment', ch 28 in FD Rose, Marine
Insurance Law and Practice (LLP, 2004)
'Double Insurance and Contribution', ch 29 in FD Rose,
Marine Insurance Law and Practice (LLP, 2004)
'Premiums', chap 8 in FD Rose, Marine Insurance Law and
Practice (LLP, 2004)
'An Account of Profits or Damages? The History of Orthodoxy'
(2004) 24 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 471
The modern orthodoxy is that compensatory and gain-based damages are
'alternative remedies' for civil wrongdoing. As such, a claimant can only
have judgment for one or other, and must elect which it is to be. This
article prepares the ground for a re-examination of that rule by exploring
its origins in patent cases, where the election requirement was firmly
established in the 1870s by the House of Lords in Neilson v Betts and De
Vitre v Betts. Closer examination of early practice offers two important
insights. The first is that the explanation given for the election
requirement in Neilson v Betts, the 'condonement theory', was novel, and not
orthodox. Pre-Neilson v Betts, courts had generally refused to allow a
claimant to have both compensatory damages (as 'damages') and gain-based
damages (as an 'account of profits'). Nevertheless, that practice had more
contingent, practical foundations than the Neilson v Betts orthodoxy
suggests. It is best viewed as a practical response, in the prevailing
institutional context, to the risk of excessive remedial cumulations. The
second insight is that the relationship between the remedies is
fundamentally determined by two factors: the prevailing conceptions of the
remedies' nature and basis, and the procedural and institutional context
within which the remedies are claimed and awarded.
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'The law of damages in the 21st century' [2004] Lloyd's
Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly 513
'Alternative and Cumulative Remedies: What is the
Difference?' [2003] Restitution Law Review 7
Stephen Watterson 