Unjust Enrichment Claims Against the Estate Based on the Provision of Services to the Deceased

Abstract

Unjust enrichment claims often feature in estate litigation. Given that succession law prizes adherence to formalities and strives for certainty, it is not surprising that disappointed beneficiaries turn to the private law to seek a share of the estate. If a properly made and executed Will governs how the deceased’s available wealth is to be distributed and the disappointed beneficiary is either not included or not included to the extent he or she thinks appropriate, then succession law provides no opportunity for relief outside the equalization claim of a spouse and a Dependants’ Relief application for support. Hence the use of unjust enrichment principles, most typically raised in relation to benefits conferred on the deceased which sound as claims for as quantum meruit damages or proprietary remedies. These are often difficult cases to litigate given that the relevant principles seem to resonate both in unjust enrichment and some more conventional action. One natural result is the well-founded suspicion that uncertainty as to the nature and extent the unjust enrichment action provides an opportunity for spurious claims to be made against in the Estate in the expectation that the Estate Trustee and beneficiaries may wish to settle rather than engage in costly and unpredictable litigation. In this paper, I examine some recent law and the underlying principles which assist in identifying a method and criteria for evaluating potential claims. The key is to follow the mandated manner of inquiry in setting out either those traditional categories of juristic reason that allow for the benefits to be retained or given up, or, to properly articulate what the reasonable expectations of the parties were in the facts of the case with reference to the developing principles law of unjust enrichment set in an appropriate public policy context. In this way, sensible results can be achieved in individual cases and the law respecting unjust enrichment claims in the succession law context can develop in a principled manner.

Keywords: Unjust Enrichment, Estates, Succession