Foskett v McKeown

判决理由

事实

Mr Murphy was trustee of money paid by would-be purchasers of building plots in Portugal, which he was obliged to hold on trust for them. In breach of trust he took some of that money and used it to pay two of the five annual premiums on a life insurance policy on his own life, written in trust for his children. Murphy then killed himself, and the policy paid out £1,000,000 to his children. The purchasers, whose trust money had funded two of the premiums, claimed a proportionate share of the death benefit.

判决摘要

The House of Lords held, by a 3–2 majority, that the beneficiaries could trace their trust money into the insurance payout and were entitled to a proportionate share of the £1,000,000 (roughly reflecting the proportion of the premiums paid with their money), rather than being limited to recovering the amount of the premiums with interest. Lord Millett, for the majority, explained that tracing is not itself a claim or a remedy but simply the evidential process by which a claimant identifies what has happened to their property and shows that value derived from it is represented by a new asset. Where a beneficiary's money is used to acquire or maintain an asset, the beneficiary can assert a proprietary interest in that asset and share proportionately in any increase in its value, because the claim vindicates a continuing property right rather than reversing an unjust enrichment; considerations of discretion or 'unjust enrichment' defences therefore did not cut down the proprietary claim. The minority would have limited recovery to a lien for the premiums. Foskett is the leading modern authority on the nature of tracing and proprietary claims to mixed substitute assets.

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