quasi contract
- noun
- /ˈkwāˌzī ˈkɒntrækt/
- Formal
:
cuasi contrato
- The judge ruled that a quasi contract existed to ensure the defendant did not benefit from the plaintiff's resources.
Examples
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In the absence of a formal agreement, the court found a quasi contract to prevent unfair gain.
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And second, was there a quasi contract or a contract implied in law between the plaintiff and defendant?
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The lawyer explained that a quasi contract could be enforced to address situations without explicit consent.
How Binding
Surface Forms
Morphology
The headwords 'quasi' (having some characteristics of) and 'contract' (a binding agreement) let a learner infer that this denotes something 'like a contract' rather than a normal agreement, so part of the meaning is recoverable. However, the specific legal sense — a court‑imposed obligation without an actual agreement to prevent unjust enrichment — is technical and not fully predictable from the constituents, making the expression only partially transparent.
Etymology
Quasi contract combines quasi (meaning 'almost') and contract (an agreement), so it literally suggests something that is 'almost' a contract. Courts create a quasi contract to treat a situation 'as if' there were a real agreement so someone does not keep an unfair gain.