Background
Richelle Cosmo and Nicholas Cosmo divorced in 2013. Their final divorce judgment required Nicholas to maintain Richelle as a beneficiary of his life insurance policy. Before his death in September 2019, however, Nicholas changed the policy to remove Richelle and name his partner, Tina O’Neill, as beneficiary instead.
In September 2020, Richelle filed suit in Kent County Superior Court against O’Neill, seeking a declaratory judgment and alleging unjust enrichment. She sought an order compelling O’Neill to turn over all life insurance proceeds received, as well as attorney’s fees. Richelle subsequently moved for summary judgment, arguing Nicholas’s change of beneficiary violated the Family Court’s divorce decree — though notably, her supporting memorandum argued conversion, a theory not pleaded in her complaint, while failing to address the elements of unjust enrichment.
The Superior Court granted summary judgment in Richelle’s favor. The trial justice found that the divorce decree controlled and that O’Neill’s laches defense did not bar the claim, but analyzed the unjust enrichment factors only in cursory fashion, stating simply that “the elements of unjust enrichment apply.” O’Neill timely appealed.
The Court’s Holding
The Rhode Island Supreme Court vacated the Superior Court’s summary judgment order, holding that Richelle’s unjust enrichment claim fails as a matter of law. To prevail on unjust enrichment, a plaintiff must show, among other elements, that she conferred a benefit upon the defendant. Here, the court found that threshold element was not satisfied: it was Nicholas — not Richelle — who conferred the life insurance benefit on O’Neill by changing the policy designation.
The court observed that the trial justice, while correctly noting that Nicholas impermissibly altered the policy in violation of the Family Court order, overlooked this critical deficiency. Because Richelle presented no evidence that she herself conferred any benefit on O’Neill, summary judgment in her favor was improper. The case was remanded for further proceedings, with the court noting that other theories of recovery might be available to Richelle, but that unjust enrichment is not among them.
Key Takeaways
- A plaintiff asserting unjust enrichment must establish that she conferred the benefit at issue on the defendant; it is insufficient that a third party — even one who violated a court order in doing so — conferred that benefit instead.
- A trial court’s failure to analyze each element of the claimed cause of action at summary judgment is reversible error, particularly where a threshold element is plainly unmet on the undisputed facts.
- A divorce decree requiring a spouse to maintain the other as life insurance beneficiary does not, by itself, create an unjust enrichment claim against the improper beneficiary who received the proceeds — the remedy may lie in a different legal theory.
- Arguing an unpleaded claim (here, conversion) in a summary judgment memorandum does not substitute for properly pleading and proving the claim actually alleged in the complaint.
Why It Matters
This decision clarifies the limits of unjust enrichment as a vehicle for recovering life insurance proceeds diverted in violation of a divorce decree. Attorneys representing surviving ex-spouses in similar situations should carefully evaluate whether to plead conversion, constructive trust, or other equitable theories — rather than relying solely on unjust enrichment — because the ex-spouse typically cannot satisfy the requirement of having personally conferred a benefit on the new beneficiary.
The case also serves as a reminder that courts will rigorously apply each element of a quasi-contract claim even where the equities appear to favor the plaintiff. The Rhode Island Supreme Court’s footnote flagging that “other theories” may support recovery signals that the door is not closed for Richelle on remand, but that counsel must identify and properly plead the correct cause of action.