money had and received

a form of action that lay to recover money paid under mistake or compulsion or for a failed consideration. It also covered cases where the defendant had acquired money from the plaintiff by a tortious act. Many of these cases are now considered to fall within that part of the English law of obligations called restitution and are not thought to be quasi-contractual in the sense of having anything to do with contract. For Scotland, See condictio indebiti.