Quasi contracts: certain relations resembling those created by contracts

Quasi contracts. Under the Indian Contract Act, 1872 (Chapter V, "Of certain relations resembling those created by contract"), these are known as quasi contracts. In some situations the law places on a person the kind of obligation a contract would create, although no contract was ever made; the idea behind them is that nobody should be allowed to gain unfairly at another's cost. Such obligations come from the law, not from agreement; they rest on a duty rather than a promise; and they give a right, usually to money, against a particular person.

The relations, with examples:

1. Necessaries supplied to a person incapable of contracting (s. 68): someone who supplies necessaries, suited to his station in life, to a person who cannot contract (or to someone that person must support) is entitled to be repaid out of that person's property. Example: a grocer who supplies ordinary monthly provisions to a minor living on his own is repaid from the minor's property, though the minor himself cannot be sued on a promise.
2. Payment by an interested person (s. 69): a person who has an interest in a payment that someone else is legally bound to make, and who makes it himself, is entitled to be reimbursed. Example: a tenant whose landlord has not paid the municipal property tax pays it to stop the house being attached, and recovers the sum from the landlord.
3. Benefit of a non-gratuitous act (s. 70): this obligation arises where three things come together: a person lawfully does something for another or delivers something to him; he does not mean to do it free of charge; and the other enjoys the benefit. The other must then pay for it or give it back. Example: a courier delivers a carton of printer paper to the wrong office, and that office uses the paper; it must pay for it.
4. Finder of goods (s. 71): a person who finds goods belonging to someone else and takes them into his custody is responsible for them as a bailee would be. Example: a student who picks up a classmate's phone in the library must take reasonable care of it and return it to the owner.
5. Money paid or thing delivered by mistake or under coercion (s. 72) must be repaid or returned. Example: a customer who pays an electricity bill twice by mistake can recover the second payment from the supplier.