unjust enrichment

[junker]

i have read in some posts that a ca or jdb defense to the sol defense is unjust enrichment. what is that? when i was sued a few months ago it was one of the plaintiffs accusations, the case was dismissed but i never found out what it actually was. HHM mentioned it was a shorter sol for unjust enrichment, can someone tell me exactly what it means?

[Rintaro]

Unjust enrichment A legal doctrine stating that if a person receives money or other property through no effort of his own, at the expense of another, the recipient should return the property to the rightful owner, even if the property was not obtained illegally. Most courts will order that the property be returned if the party who has suffered the loss brings a lawsuit.

Example
A typical example of a claim based on unjust enrichment is that of payment by mistake. Imagine that customer B is accidentally given $10 too much change by shopkeeper A. B does not notice the mistake. There is no way that B can be accused of any wrongdoing. Nonetheless, the law imposes an obligation on B to repay $10 to A. This is because B has been unjustly enriched by $10 by A’s payment. Unjust enrichment, if proved, always triggers an obligation to make restitution. It never triggers an obligation to pay compensation because such an obligation might leave the defendant, who is normally entirely innocent, out of pocket.

SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unjust_enrichment

[junker]

so what they are saying is they accidently gave you credit thru no fault of their own and you should be obligated to pay no matter what. even though you did make payments and showed a effort to pay?

[HHM]

They are not saying they "accidentally" gave you credit. All they are claiming is that you benefited by having the credit and you did not live up to your obligation to make restitution.

In civil cases, there are generally 2 types of claims, (1) contract, and (2) common law.

Contract claims are easy, they are claims based directly on the written obligations of the contract.

Common law claims are harder to explain. Unjust enrichment is a type of common law claim. Common law claims are used when there is no contract, or if the contract is held to be invalid for some reason. So, for example, if the SOL expired on the contract, you may still have a common law claim for unjust enrichment (however, is reality, the SOL on common law claims tends to be shorter than on contract claims). A better example is in the personal injury case, there is no contract between you and the other drivers insurance company, so your injury claims are ALL common law Tort claims.

Also keep in mind, when a suit is filed, they have to include ALL possible claims, because if the plaintiff forgets to include a particular claim, then they are barred from bringing that particular claim in the future.

[junker]

so in order to prevail with unjust enrichment the contract would have to be found invalid for some other reason first? like if i was deceptive in getting the contract or lied or opened the acct and never made one payment, something like that? if everything is legal and proper, and the sol is valid, then as in my case the unjust enrichement claim has no merit, is that correct?