Reisenfeld & Co. vs. the Network Group, Essay Example

In the case, Reisenfeld& Co. v. The Network Group, Inc., Judge Boogs made a decision and indicated that the contract implied-in-law, or “quasi-contract” is not a true contract, but a liability that was imposed by the courts in order to prevent an unjust enrichment.  In addition, the Judge implied that under the Ohio law there are three elements for this type of claim.  The first and second element referred to the benefit conferred by the plaintiff and the knowledge of the defendant.  The third element referred to the retention of the benefit by the defendant under the circumstances making it unjust to do so without receiving payment.  The phrasing in the decision left some ambiguity and lack of clarity. The current paper discusses the ambiguous word that was important to the reasoning of the Judge’s decision in this case.

The Judge uses the term, “unjust”. Using the term just or unjust can be subjective and is not necessarily a clear and definitive answer.  The term could be taken as malleable and therefore, not acceptable to some. The judge ruled according to the reasoning that the benefited third party is not liable under a theory of unjust enrichment in the absence of a true contract.  Since unjust enrichment stems from the failure to make restitution where it is reasonable to do so, the phrasing should say exactly that, failure to make restitution. Implying that one is unjust leads to the impression that the owner himself was “unjust” for not having paid Reisenfeld for its services.  Since the court ruled that Reisenfeld was in fact entitled to recover a reasonable value for its services from the Owner, it seems that the ruling should change the phrasing since the owner is only liable for a reasonable value and not the entire value of the claim. In addition, the ruling leaves an ambiguous question of whether or not the owner was unjust for not having paid the services.  If a ruling states specifically, “Failure to Make Restitution”, the ruling is clear acceptable.