Excerpt from Cases on Quasi-Contracts: Edited With Notes and References The present collection of cases on Quasi-Contracts is prepared to meet the needs of classroom instruction of not more than three hours a week during half a year. While a case-book as such can make little or no pretence to originality in any way, attention is called to the historical treatment of the subject in the first eighteen pages of the book, whereby the quasi-contract of the present day is treated as a natural, if unconscious, development of the quasi-contract of the Roman Law. To make clear this connection, frequent reference is made in the footnotes to the Roman and modern Civil Law of the Continent and Spanish-American States. It is hoped that the law of Quasi-Contract gains in importance and precision, as it certainly does in antiquity and dignity, by treatment as a part of a larger and well-nigh universal system of law. In the next place, the arrangement is different from that with which the public is familiar. The present collection follows, and necessarily, Mr. Ames's classification of the nature and extent of quasi-contract, as did Judge Keener, both in his Cases and Treatise; but the non-contractual aspect of the subject is accentuated from the very beginning. After the introductory matter of Book I., the obligation is considered as existing, independent of any contract, and, indeed, its existence is in itself the negation of contract. As. for example, the obligation of restitution when defendant acquired the plaintiff's property by a tort, or where the money in question was paid by the plaintiff under duress, legal or equitable, or under compulsion of legal process. Then recovery is considered when a contract exists, but the contract itself is due to mistake of law or fact. In the next place, the question of recovery in quasi-contract is considered when the contract is impossible of performance; when the contract is illegal; when the contract is unenforceable under the Statute of Frauds. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.