Defendant-Sided Unjust Factors

This Seminar will examine the rationale behind the defendant-sided unjust factors, meaning duress and undue influence

The main difference between these causes of action in unjust enrichment and mistake claims for example (a claimant-sided unjust factor) is that the defendant needs to have done something. This makes rationalising the actions easier in that it is easier to explain why the defendant should be liable, something surprisingly difficult to explain in mistake cases.

The seminar will suggest that while mistake is based on the failure of a condition on his intention, meaning that the claimant’s intention does not cover the facts as they actually turn out to be, defendant-sided factors are based on the defendant’s having improperly inveigled himself into the claimant’s practical reasoning. It suggests that this happens in such a way that although the intentions – and desires driving them –have, in philosophical language, agential authority for the claimant, they were formed in a way that the claimant is in the grip of a norm, and explores what this concept might be.