The State of the Law of Unjust Enrichment in Common Law Canada

Abstract

More than ten years after the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Garland v Consumers’ Gas, scholars of the Canadian common law of unjust enrichment are still in disagreement as to effects of the decision and as to the overall shape of this part of the law. In particular, there is disagreement as to whether Garland instituted a wholly new approach to the question whether an enrichment should be considered unjust. This paper reviews the decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada since Garland and reaches the conclusion that the Court has implicitly rejected the view that there is a single overarching principle that governs all of the common law of unjust enrichment. The paper concludes by suggesting that the future of the common law of unjust enrichment, in Canada and elsewhere, may involve the recognition that this field of law includes not only a multiplicity of ways to determine whether an enrichment is unjust, but also a multiplicity of causes of action.