Various developments of the money counts

This chapter shows how the action of assumpsit for money, usually in the fictional form known as indebitatus assumpsit, was extended in the seventeenth century to cover situations beyond the reach of the old action of debt: for instance, actions on bills of exchange, actions for sums of money not quantified at the time of contracting (quantum meruit and quantum valebant), and restitutionary actions for money received to the plaintiff’s use. The last category overlapped with the action of account, but unlike account could be used against wrongdoers. Excessive use of ‘money had and received’ to replace the usual remedies in contract and tort was resisted, with only partial success, by Chief Justice Holt.