Equity Will Not Aid A Volunteer
Equity cannot be used to take back a benefit that was voluntarily but mistakenly conferred without consultation of the receiver. This maxim protects the doctrine of choice.
This maxim is very important in restitution. Restitution developed as a series of writs called special assumpsit, which were later additions in the courts of law, and were more flexible tools of recovery, based on equity. Restitution could provide means of recovery when people bestowed benefits on one another (such as giving money or providing services) according to contracts that would have been legally unenforceable.
However, pursuant to the equitable maxim, restitution does not allow a volunteer or "officious intermeddler" to recover. A volunteer is not merely someone who acts selflessly. In the legal (and equitable) context, it refers to someone who provides a benefit regardless of whether the recipient wants it. For example, when someone mistakenly builds an improvement on a home, neither equity nor restitution will allow the improver to recover from the homeowner.
An exception to this maxim can be seen in cases where the doctrine of estoppel applies.
Read more about this topic: Maxims Of Equity
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—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)