Restitution: Civil Liability for Unjust Enrichment

by Ward Farnsworth

Restitution is the body of law concerned with taking away gains that someone has wrongfully obtained. The operator of a Ponzi scheme takes money from his victims by fraud and then invests it in stocks that rise in value. Or a company pays a shareholder excessive dividends or pays them to the wrong person. Or a man poisons his grandfather and then collects under the grandfather’s will. In each of these cases, one party is unjustly enriched at the expense of another. And in all of them the law of restitution provides a way to undo the enrichment and transfer the defendant’s gains to a party with better rights to them. Tort law focuses on the harm, or costs, that one party wrongfully imposes on another. Restitution is the mirror image; it corrects gains that one party wrongfully receives at another’s expense. It is an important topic for every lawyer and for anyone else interested in how the legal system responds to injustice. 

In Restitution, Ward Farnsworth presents a guide to this body of law that is compact, lively, and insightful―the first treatment of its kind that the American law of restitution has received. The book explains restitution doctrines, remedies, and defenses with unprecedented clarity and illustrates them with vivid examples. Farnsworth demonstrates that the law of restitution is guided by a manageable and coherent set of principles that have remarkable versatility and power. Restitution makes a complex and important area of law accessible, understandable, and interesting to any reader.

178 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Ward Farnsworth is Dean and John Jeffers Research Chair at the University of Texas School of Law. He formerly was Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Law at the Boston University Law School. He has served as a law clerk to Anthony M. Kennedy of the United States Supreme Court and to Richard A. Posner of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and worked as a Legal Adviser to the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal in the Hague. He received his J.D. with high honors from the University of Chicago Law School, and his B.A. from Wesleyan University.

Farnsworth is the author of books on law, philosophy, rhetoric, and chess. He also has published scholarly articles on the economic analysis of law, constitutional law, statutory interpretation, jurisprudence, and cognitive psychology. He serves as Reporter for the American Law Institute’s Restatement Third, Torts: Liability for Economic Harm.

Reviews

[Robert Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ward Farnsworth has become one of my favorite authors. It's refreshing to find someone who refuses to be constrained to write on only a single topic. Farnsworth has written books on law, philosophy, rhetoric, chess, and more. Invariably, it would seem, they end up being fascinating reads. I first discovered Farnsworth's work through a book on law, and it's nice to see his return to that subject in this book.

As with his prior work, I greatly appreciate the blend of examples, both practical and hypothetical, with legal doctrine and the judicial philosophies that guide that doctrine. Such a mixture aids both readability and understanding, and leaves the reader with a deep sense not only of what the law is, but WHY the law is, and how it might operate given subtle variations in fact patterns.

But that raises a question: given the complexity of law, and in light of the author's assertion that the body of law known as restitution has been underexplored in the past, who is this book for? Does one require the expertise of a lawyer to understand the book, or is it intended as a sort of introduction for a lay audience. I'm pleased to report that the book occupies a happy middle ground. While some prior knowledge of law is certainly useful (and arguably even necessary), the author makes no assumptions regarding the reader's understanding of the particular body of law under consideration. The book is written in a formal yet friendly tone that makes it easy for most readers to understand what's going on. The book does not sacrifice accuracy for readability, either. If there is a tradeoff, it's that the book doesn't take the time to fully explore the case law on all of its topics, instead providing illustrative examples. As a result, the book may not be intended for GENERAL audiences, but is certainly suitable for lawyers as well as educated and curious lay audiences--with the caveat that lawyers who want to practice in this area of law will have to spend a fair amount of time digging through the bibliography for the very finest of details.

The bottom line is: Farnsworth has done it again. As with everything he's written so far, I was both entertained and enlightened by the read. I can't wait to see what he comes up with next.