is an
English unjust enrichment law The English law of unjust enrichment is part of the English law of obligations, along with the law of contract, tort, and trusts. The law of unjust enrichment deals with circumstances in which one person is required to make restitution of a benefit ...
case, concerning to what extent enrichment of the defendant must be at the expense of the claimant.
Facts
Mr Jones transferred £11,700 in cheques from his
potato
The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae.
Wild potato species can be found from the southern Unit ...
growing firm’s
bank account to Mrs Jones. The firm became insolvent, which vested the account retrospectively into the
trustee in bankruptcy
A trustee in bankruptcy is an entity, often an individual, in charge of administering a bankruptcy estate.
Canada
In Canada, a licensed insolvency trustee (LIT) is an individual or a corporation licensed by the official superintendent to hold ...
. Mrs Jones bought potato
futures, and earned £50,760. This was put into an account with Raphael & Sons plc. The
official receiver claimed that under the
Bankruptcy Act 1914
The Bankruptcy Act 1914 ( 4 & 5 Geo. 5. c. 59) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which formed the primary source of UK insolvency law for approximately 70 years. It came into force on 1 January 1915 repealing a number of earli ...
sections 37 and 38, the money belonged to it. Mrs Jones claimed it was hers, but the sum was paid into court.
Judgment
Millett LJ
Peter Julian Millett, Baron Millett, , (23 June 1932 – 27 May 2021) was a British barrister and judge. He was a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary from 1998 to 2004.
Biography
Early life
The son of Denis and Adele Millett, he was educated at Har ...
held the trustee in bankruptcy could recover everything. From the date of the act of bankruptcy, all money in the bankrupts’ joint accounts belonged to the trustee in bankruptcy. Mr Jones had no title to the money paid out, and could therefore not pass title to Mrs Jones. Equity had no role. The deposit of the trustee’s money under the contract’s terms with the commodity broker belonged to the trustee.
Significantly in Jones it was indicated that a
fiduciary relationship was no longer an exclusive precondition for the use of
equitable tracing, the fiduciary character of the defendant's receipt was expressly negatived.
See also
*
English unjust enrichment law The English law of unjust enrichment is part of the English law of obligations, along with the law of contract, tort, and trusts. The law of unjust enrichment deals with circumstances in which one person is required to make restitution of a benefit ...
*
Tracing in English law
Tracing is a procedure in English law used to identify property (such as money) which has been taken from the claimant involuntarily or which the claimant wishes to recover. It is not in itself a way to recover the property, but rather to identif ...
Notes
References
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Trustee of FC Jones and Son v Jones
English unjust enrichment case law
Court of Appeal (England and Wales) cases
1996 in United Kingdom case law