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Mistake, Failure of Consideration and the Planning Theory of Intention

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 February 2015

Duncan Sheehan
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Abstract

Recovery of mistaken payments in the law of restitution is often justified by reference to a vitiated intention and that of payments where there is a failure of consideration by reference to a qualified intention. This paper aims to investigate whether this is a misleading characterisation and suggests that both causes of action should be understood in terms of conditions affecting our intentions. Specifically we should look at the failure of our planning agency, and Michael Bratman’s theory of agency in particular. In cases of mistaken payments we should look at the failure of a background condition to the payment. In such cases to fail to allow recovery is to fail to respect me as an autonomous actor, acting under norms having agential authority for me. In failure of consideration cases the autonomy of the other party is at stake, but we can take this into account by positing not a failure of a condition affecting personal intention, but affecting collective intention. There are different views on what collective intention is and how it should be understood, which may themselves have different implications in terms of the concurrency of mistake and failure of consideration as unjust factors. The paper examines different ways in which collective intentions might fail and how they fit the failure of consideration paradigm.

Keywords

Mistaken paymentsrestitutionintentcontractfailure of considerion
Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , January 2015 , pp. 155 - 181
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 2015 

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Footnotes

This paper was presented at the Restitution section of the SLS Conference at Edinburgh University in September 2013. Many thanks to those who contributed to the discussion and to Charles Mitchell, Fred Wilmot-Smith and Steve Smith for their kind comments on earlier drafts. Thanks also to the Editor and CJLJ referee for observations and suggestions. All remaining errors are my own.

References

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4. It is possible for a collective intention to involve three or even more people. A soccer team or section of the team (strikers and midfielders perhaps) might form a collective intention to mount an attack and try to score a goal, but this will probably involve more than two players. For our purposes we will stick to two person collective intentions.

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90. This is Searle’s example discussed in Abraham Sesshu Roth, “Shared Agency”, online: (Spring 2011) in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, by Edward N Zalta at 2, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/shared-agency/.

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96. Roth, “Shared Agency”, supra note 90; Roth has sympathy with the normative requirements of consistency etc, but does not support the bridge intention account.

97. Bratman, Shared Agency, supra note 91 at 64-66.

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101. This is Alonso’s example. See Facundo Alonso, “Shared Intention, Reliance and Interpersonal Obligations” (2009) 119 Ethics 444 at 452-53.

102. Bratman, Shared Agency, supra note 91 at 72.

103. Raimo Tuomela, “Collective and Joint Intention” (2000) 1:2 Mind and Society 39 at 55.

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106. Michael Bratman, “Dynamics of Sociality” (2006) 30:1 Midwest Studies in Philosophy 1 at 10-12.

107. Ibid at 6. See Thomas Scanlon, “Promises and Practices” (1990) 19 Philosophy & Public Affairs 199 at 208; see for discussion Margaret Gilbert, “In Search of Sociality” (1998) 1 Philosophical Explorations 233.

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110. Bratman, Shared Agency, supra note 91 at 34.

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112. [2013] UKSC 50, [2013] 3 WLR 351.

113. [2010] EWCA Civ 1427 at para 3; performance, as it actually turned out, was described as a “radically different” arrangement by Lord Clarke at [2013] UKSC 50 at para 42, [2013] 3 WLR 351. The Supreme Court in fact reversed the decision of the Court of Appeal but only on the issue of quantum of relief; for comment see Mitchell McInnes, “The Nature of Restitutionary Enrichments” (2014) 130 Law Q Rev 8.

114. Thomas v Brown (1876), 1 QBD 714.

115. Ferrero, “Conditional Intentions”, supra note 23 at 726.

116. Klass, supra note 2 at 133.

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119. Westdeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale v Islington LBC [1996] AC 669 (failure of consideration); Kleinwort Benson v Lincoln City Council [1999] 2 AC 349 (mistake).

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