Restitution -- 1964 Tennessee Survey

The most significant case during the Survey period is Gulf Oil Corp.v. Forcum. The State of Tennessee condemned for highway purposes certain property including the location of a filling station. Defendant was lessee of this property and had installed its own tanks, pumps and other equipment. Plaintiff had the contract to construct the highway and was entitled under this contract to salvage condemned property. Refusing to allow defendant\u27s agent to remove the service station equipment, plaintiff removed the equipment itself at considerable expense. When the condemnation proceeding was completed, defendant was awarded 2,000 dollars for the value of its leasehold, and 3,000 dollars for the reasonable costs of removing the equipment. It then sued plaintiff in replevin and recovered the equipment on the ground that it was personal property which had not been condemned. The present action is to recover 3,000 dollars, as the cost of removing and storing the equipment. The lower court held for the plaintiff and awarded 1,000 dollars as the reasonable value. This was reversed by the court of appeals

Restitution -- 1957 Tennessee Survey

Compulsion of Judgment: This year\u27s most important decision in the field of Restitution is the famous case of New York Life Ins. Co.v. Nashville Trust Co.\u27 This was the case in which one Buntin disappeared from his home in Nashville under circumstances which led the Supreme Court of Tennessee to hold that he had committed suicide and thus died while an insurance policy was still in effect. As a result the plaintiff insurance company was compelled to pay the defendant trust company, as trustees for the beneficiaries of the policy (Buntin\u27s family), an amount of $60,000. Years later, Buntin was found alive in another state, and the insurance company sued to recover the trust funds still held by the trustee. The suit was in chancery, to establish a constructive trust

Restitution -- 1956 Tennessee Survey

The pervasive principle of Restitution--that A person who has been unjustly enriched at the expense of another is required to make restitution to the other \u27--makes use of many remedies, both at law and in equity. This year\u27s Restitution cases will be classified according to the nature of the remedy. One who pays the obligation of another may be entitled to indemnity, if he has not acted officiously. He may also be entitled to the remedy of subrogation, permitting him to step into the shoes of the person to whom, he paid and enforce any lien or right which that person may have against the obligor. One illustration of these remedies is given in State v. Perry, involving the right given by statute to the Tennessee Department of Welfare to collect from a husband or father amounts paid by it for the support of a dependent wife or children