quasi contract

The transaction, in this latter case, between the pilot and the master or owners, cannot be strictly termed a contract, but it is a transaction to which the law attaches similar consequences; it is a quasi contract. The absence of assent on the part of the master or owner of the vessel does not change the case.

A liability similar to that created by contract, but not really arising by the consent of the parties. Qu Msi contracts are said to be founded in general. (1) On a record, as the liability on a judgment. (■2) On a statutory, official, or customary duty, as the obligation of a husband for necessaries furnished his wife, even against his orders; or the liability of a vessel for half pilotage on refusing the first pilot offering himself. 2 Wall. (U. S.) 450. (3) On the doctrine that no one shall be permitted to enrich himself unjustly at the expense of another; as the liability of an infant to pay for necessaries (141 Mass. 530), or the liability to repay money paid by mistake (Keener, Quasi Cont. 16). The distinction between "quasi contract" and "implied contract" appears to be one of degree, rather than of principle. It has been said that implied contract extends to those cases where there was an intent to contract, or at least no intent not to contract; but in many cases commonly assigned to implied contracts, the only evidence of intent to contract is in the imputed knowledge that the law would impose a given liability, and this element is absent from but few quasi contracts. On the other hand, the test of definite intention not to contract would exclude many liabilities properly classified as quasi contractual, 6. g., that for money paid by mistake. It may be said, generally, that quasi contracts embrace those cases where there was a positive intention not to contract, and cases where there was no intent to contract, and the party was more remote from any inferred intent than in cases of implied contract, but the exact line of demarcation cannot, in the present state of legal nomenclature, be drawn. QUASI CONTRACTUS (Lat.)

In civil law. The act of a person, permitted by law, by which he obligates himself towards another, or by which another binds himself to him, without any agreement between them. By article 2272 of the Civil Code of Louisiana, which is translated from article 1371 tary acts of a man, from which there results any obligation whatever to a third person, and sometimes a reciprocal obligation between the parties." In contracts, it is the consent of. the contracting parties which produces the obligation; in quasi contracts no consent is required, and the obligation arises from the law or natural equity, on the facts of the case. These acts are called "quasi contracts" because, without being contracts, they bind the parties as contracts do. Bracton makes use of the term "quasi ex contractu," and includes contracts that impliedly arise from the relations of agency, wardship, the division of common property, the distribution of an inheritance, an action growing out of a testament, a suit to require a sum paid not due, and such like. 253 111. 173. There is no term in the common law which answers to that of "quasi contract." Many quasi contracts may doubtless be classed among "implied contracts." There is, however, a difference to be noticed. For example, in case money should be paid by mistake to a minor, it may be recovered from him by the civil law, because his consent is not necessary to a quasi contract; but by the common law, if it can be recovered, it must be upon an agreement to which the law presumes he has consented, and it is doubtful, upon principle, whether such recovery could be had. Quasi contracts may be multiplied almost to infinity. They are, however, divided into five classes, — such as relate to the voluntary and spontaneous management of the affairs of another, without authority (negotiorwm gestiai); the administration of tutorship; the management of common property (com Tnunio honorum); the acquisition of an inheritance; and the payment of a sum of money or other thing by mistake, when nothing was due (indebiti solutio). Each of these quasi contracts has an affinity with some contract. Thus, the management of the affairs of another without authority, and tutorship, are compared to a mandate; the community of property, to a partnership; the acquisition of an inheritance, to a stipulation; and the payment of a thing which is not due, to a loan.