ABSTRACT
Alternatively, the doctrine is said to be one of ‘unjustified enrichment’ which offers the possibility
of a much broader theatre of conflict to any situation in which the defendant must justify the
enrichment realised.33 This heightens the problem of what is just and unjust, justif ied and
unjustified. The spectre of the unspoken value judgments bound up in those terms stalks the
otherwise productive valley of the restitution lawyers as their word processors sleep at night. Little
mention is ever made of the Canadian usage of unjustified enrichment in relation to rights in the
home, where the entire doctrine is driven by explicit value judgments such as the value to be
accepted to the work contributed to the home by a wife and mother.34 These are sociologically
loaded concerns which would make an English property or restitution lawyer blush. Importantly,
they are meat and drink to family and welfare lawyers.35 This volume thus reads in stark contrast
to its sibling New Perspectives on Property Law, Human Rights and the Home36 in which the analysis
of such value judgments is the stock-in-trade of almost all the contributions.
