Legal Definition and Related Resources of Quasi contract

A liability similar to that created by contract, but not really arising by the consent of the parties. QuMsi contracts are said to be founded in general.
(1) On a record, as the liability on a judgment.
(2) On a statutory, official, or customary duty, as the obligation of a husband for necessaries furnished his wife, even against his orders; or the liability of a vessel for half pilotage on refusing the first pilot offering himself. 2 Wall. (U. S.) 450.
(3) On the doctrine that no one shall be permitted to enrich himself unjustly at the expense of another; as the liability of an infant to pay for necessaries (141 Mass. 530), or the liability to repay money paid by mistake (Keener, Quasi Cont. 16). The distinction between “quasi contract” and “implied contract” appears to be one of degree, rather than of principle. It has been said that implied contract extends to those cases where there was an intent to contract, or at least no intent not to contract; but in many cases commonly assigned to implied contracts, the only evidence of intent to contract is in the imputed knowledge that the law would impose a given liability, and this element is absent from but few quasi contracts. On the other hand, the test of definite intention not to contract would exclude many liabilities properly classified as quasi contractual, 6. g., that for money paid by mistake. It may be said, generally, that quasi contracts embrace those cases where there was a positive intention not to contract, and cases where there was no intent to contract, and the party was more remote from any inferred intent than in cases of implied contract, but the exact line of demarcation cannot, in the present state of legal nomenclature, be drawn.

The best example of quasi-contract in English law is salvage (see in the English Legal Encyclopedia). See Quasi-Contract in the Legal Dictionaries.

See Also

You might be interested in these related entries:

• Quasi Contractus in the Free Online Dictionary of Law Terms
• Quasi-Contract meaning in the American Legal Encyclopedia

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This definition of Quasi Contract is based on the The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary . This entry needs to be proofread.

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