Making Sense of Mesne Profits: Remedies

By Professor Charles Mitchell (Professor of Law at UCL Laws) and Dr Luke Rostill (Associate Professor of Property Law at University of Oxford)

Green fields and land in Killerton, England

27 October 2021

Publication details

Mitchell, Charles and Rostill, Luke (2021) 'Making Sense of Mesne Profits: Remedies', Cambridge Law Journal, 10.1017/S0008197321000775.

Summary

This is the second of two articles about cases in which awards of “mesne profits” have been made against defendants who have occupied claimants’ land. The first article argues that the facts of cases where such awards have been made variously support claims in tort, contract or unjust enrichment and that practical consequences can flow from categorising the cases in one way or another. One is that different rules affect the assessment of remedies awarded to claimants depending on the claim that was made and the remedy that was awarded. The present article develops this point by examining the assessment principles governing “mesne profits” awards, according to whether these are classified as compensatory damages in tort, restitutionary damages in tort, orders that a defendant perform a contractual duty to pay a debt, compensatory damages for breach of contract, or orders that a defendant make restitution of an unjust enrichment.