ABSTRACT
The constructive trust is a court order declaring that the defendant (D) holds a disputed asset on trust for the plaintiff (P). Langbein says that the constructive trust is ‘a species of equitable remedy, comparable in function to the injunction or decree of specific performance. The constructive trust is imposed coercively, as a means of correcting wrongdoing or preventing unjust enrichment’.1 By contrast, he goes on to say, ‘the ordinary private trust is a consensual relationship voluntarily assumed by the trustee’.2 The constructive trust remedy is a proprietary one. It gives P a claim to the disputed asset itself. The alternative is a personal remedy for damages or an account of profits. A personal remedy gives P a money claim against D but nothing more. The difference matters particularly if D is bankrupt, but it is trite law that D’s bankruptcy is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for granting P constructive trust relief.3
