ABSTRACT
With respect, however, it is open to a little doubt whether the doctrine does any work that cannot be done using other techniques.162 Taking first the necessitous intervener, the only ‘unjust factor’ triggering his claim in the first place is the rather vague one of meritorious conduct: an officious intervener is surely unmeritorious, and so falls at the first fence anyway. As for the voluntary surety, it is suggested below163 that the job supposedly done by ‘officiousness’ can equally well be done by a flexible interpretation of the concept of compulsion: a surety who agrees to pay another’s debt voluntarily and with no other sound business or other reason to do so can hardly claim that he has been compelled to pay it when called on to do so.
