What is remedial constructive trust?

In Soulos v. Korkontzilas, [1997] S.C.J. No. 552 (S.C.C.), at para. 17, McLachlin J. (as she then was) described the remedial constructive trust: … the constructive trust is an ancient and eclectic institution imposed by law not only to remedy unjust enrichment, but to hold persons in different situations to high standards of trust and probity and prevent them from retaining property which in “good conscience” they should not be permitted to retain. This served the end, not only of doing justice in the case before the court, but of protecting relationships of trust and the institutions that depend on these relationships. These goals were accomplished by treating the person holding the property as a trustee of it for the wronged person’s benefit, even though there was no true trust created by intention. In England, the trust thus created was thought of as a real or “institutional” trust. In the United States and recently in Canada, jurisprudence speaks of the availability of the constructive trust as a remedy; hence the remedial constructive trust.

It is now well established that a constructive trust may be imposed in the absence of wrongful conduct, like breach of fiduciary duty, where three elements are present: (1) the enrichment of the defendant; (2) the corresponding deprivation of the plaintiff; and (3) the absence of a juristic reason for the enrichment (Pettkus v. Becker, 1980 CanLII 22 (SCC), [1980] 2 S.C.R. 834 (S.C.C.)).