Question 1 (b)
A quasi contract is an obligation the law creates
6 marks
- Time to write
- About 12 minutes
From an older CBCS paper
Question
Question 1 (b) · 6 marks“A quasi contract is not at all a contract. It is an obligation the law creates”. Comment.
Reworded from the university paper; the task is the same. The original paper belongs to the University of Delhi. See DU's question bank.
Before you write
Read off the question and its marks
Read from the question
- CommentA statement to judge: take a stand on it in your first line, and come back to it at the end.
What the paper leaves open
The copy of this paper is cut off at the right edge of the page; the letters lost there are read from the sense. The mark for this part is not legible on the copy; it is reckoned here at 6 marks, the paper's own split for its other questions.
Write it in this order
- Read; underline the asks; jot your points 1 min
- 1 Comment 2 marks 3 min
- 2 Features with example 4 marks 7 min
- Check: every ask answered, key terms underlined 1 min
Short on time? Trim steps 1 and 2 evenly rather than skip one: each is capped at its own marks.
Try it first. About 12 minutes for 6 marks. Write it out, then open the solution.
Solution
Hover or tap a marked figure, like 72,000, to see how it is made and where else it appears.
Comment. The statement is correct. Suppose a customer pays an electricity bill twice by mistake. The supplier made no promise to refund anything, and the two never agreed on a refund, yet the law obliges the supplier to return the second payment (s. 72). Obligations of this kind, put on a person by law although no contract was ever made, are quasi contracts. They lack every ingredient of an agreement, offer, acceptance and consent, but the law still creates a duty on one side and a matching right on the other.
Features, seen through the same example:
- Source: the supplier's duty comes from the law, not from anything he agreed to.
- Basis: what binds him is a legal duty, not a promise.
- Content: the customer's right is to a sum of money, here the amount of the second payment.
- Against whom: the right is against the supplier only, not against people generally.
- Enforcement: the customer can sue for it as he would on a contract.
- Purpose: the supplier would otherwise be enriched unfairly at the customer's expense, which the law will not allow; the same idea makes a person who supplies necessaries to someone who cannot contract entitled to be repaid from that person's property (s. 68).
Conclusion. A quasi contract resembles a contract in its effect but not in its origin: it is an obligation created by law to prevent unjust enrichment.
Where the 6 marks sit
| # | Component | Marks |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Comment | 2 |
| 2 | Features with example | 4 |
| Total | 6 |
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