If these conditions are satisfied, Section 70 imposes upon the latter person the liability to make compensation to the former in respect of, or to restore, the thing so done or delivered. The important point to notice is that in a case falling under Section 70 the person doing something for another or delivering something to another cannot sue for the specific performance of the contract, nor ask for damages for the breach of the contract, for the simple reason that there is no contract between him and the other person for whom he does something or to whom he delivers something. The juristic kind of obligation. Juristic basis of the obligation in such a case is not founded upon any contract or tort but upon a third category of law, namely, quasi-contract or restitution. Such remedies in English Law are generically different from remedies in contract or in tort, and are now recognised to fall within a third category of the common law which has been called quasi-contract or restitution.
Principles have now to be stated in the light of their combined effect.
Nor is it necessary to canvass the niceties of the old forms of action. Remedies now depend on the substance of the right, not on whether they can be fitted into a particular framework. The right here is not peculiar to equity or contract or tort, but falls naturally within the important category of cases where the court orders restitution if the justice of the case so requires. It is unfortunate that the courts below were not attentive to the procedural laws and their duty to do substantial justice in the case. Courts below fell into error in going into the question of privity of contract and lost sight of the basic issue involved in the case.