A person who responds in a selfless manner to another's necessitous circumstances by providing appropriate assistance will deserve, and will often receive, expressions of gratitudcand esteem. The policy served by the necessitous intervention principle may be that which is said to underlie the roughly analogous civilian doctrine, negotbrum gestio. An examination of the case law permitting recovery to the altruistic intermeddler across a broad range of factual situations thus yields considerable evidence in support of the view that the courts have accepted the validity of a general principle. The general principles of necessitous intervention of which these individual instances of recovery are merely specific applications. The general principle is hedged with limitations which appear to ensure that recovery will not be permitted where the intervention is officious or where the conduct of the intervenor is not beneficial. Restitutionary claims by strangers against the defaulting promisors are reported in the American case law.