## Facts

- A landowner (Patureau-Miran) leased agricultural land to a tenant farmer.
- During the lease, the tenant purchased fertilizer from a supplier (Boudier) and applied it to the leased field.
- The tenant failed to pay the supplier for the fertilizer and later defaulted under the lease.
- After the lease ended, the tenant surrendered the standing crop to the landowner as part of settling the lease obligations.
- The landowner retained the improved crop, which had increased in value due to the unpaid fertilizer.
- The supplier, unable to obtain payment from the tenant, sued the landowner directly seeking payment limited to the value of the benefit received.

## Issues

1. Whether a supplier lacking contractual privity with a landowner may recover from the landowner in restitution when the landowner benefited from goods supplied to the landowner’s tenant.
2. Whether a general, equitable action for unjust enrichment (action de in rem verso) exists independent of specific statutory authorization.
3. What minimum showing is required to state such a restitution claim and measure recovery.

## Decision

- The Cour de cassation rejected the landowner’s appeal and affirmed judgment for the supplier.
- The court recognized an autonomous restitutionary action (action de in rem verso) derived from an equitable principle prohibiting enrichment at another’s expense.
- The court held the action was available despite the absence of a contract between supplier and landowner.
- The supplier could recover from the landowner up to the value of the advantage the landowner obtained from the fertilizer.

## Legal Principles

- A person who is enriched at another’s expense may be required to make restitution based on an equitable principle forbidding unjust enrichment.
- The restitution claim is treated as autonomous and not dependent on contractual privity between claimant and defendant.
- Because the action is not grounded in a specific statutory text, it is not confined to rigid, predetermined statutory conditions; at minimum, the claimant must allege and offer to prove that, by a personal act or sacrifice, the claimant conferred an advantage on the defendant.
- Recovery is limited to the value of the benefit retained by the defendant (i.e., indemnity capped by the advantage received).

## Conclusion

The court affirmed liability in restitution against a landowner who kept the value of an improved crop resulting from unpaid fertilizer supplied to the tenant, recognizing a general equitable action for unjust enrichment independent of contractual privity and limiting recovery to the value of the benefit conferred.


Patureau-Miran v. Boudier, Cass. req. (Fr.) (June 15, 1892)