This сase, which now makes its second appearance before this court, arose from a transaction in which appellee delivered ceramic tile tо appellant. When appellant accepted the tile but refused to pay for it, appellee brought an action against appellant in two counts: one based on contract and one based on unjust enrichment. After a bench trial, the court entered an order ruling for appellant on the contract claim without addressing the unjust enrichment claim. Appellee appealed, and this court vacated the judgment because it failed to. address the unjust enrichment claim and containеd insufficient findings of fact to support the ruling on the contract claim. See
Zumpano Enterprises v. Ga. Tile Distrib.,
Appellant and appellee are competitors in the ceramic tile distribution business. Prior to late 1987 or early 1988, appellant was a distributor of tiles manufactured by Windsor Ceramic Tile (“Windsor”) and ordered tile from Windsor directly. Around that time, however, appellee and Windsor entered into a master distributorship agreеment giving appellee the exclusive right to fill orders for Windsor’s tile in the region. In December 1987, appellant submitted an order for ceramic tile directly to Windsor, and in January 1988, Windsоr passed the order along to appellee as its master distributor for the area. Appellee then called appellant to arrange for delivery of the tile. Whether this conversation between agents of appellant and appellee created a contract was disputed at trial, and the trial court concluded that it did not. Windsor shipped appellant’s tile to appellee in mid- *488 January 1988, in a truckload along with other tile that appellee had ordered, and billed appellee rather than appellant the $9,151.54 owed for the tile appellant ordered. Appellee paid this amount to Windsor and billed appellant $10,628.89. Even though аppellant knew of appellee’s master distributorship agreement with Windsor, appellant says it was not aware it would be billed by appellee rather than Windsor until it actually received the bill. By that time most of the delivered tile had been sold, and by the time of trial all had been sold.
1. Appellant contends that, because the trial court found аppellant’s version of the pre-delivery conversation between agents of the parties more persuasive than appellee’s version and held that “[b]asеd upon its review of the testimony, this Court resolves all credibility issues in favor of the [appellant] as to Count One,” the trial court erred in concluding that appellee could recover under an unjust enrichment theory. In the absence of a contractual agreement, appellant argues, appellee (1) must have known it would not be compensated by appellant when the goods were delivered to appellant and appellee paid Windsor, so the general presumption of an implied, promise to pay was rebutted and appellant was a mere volunteer not entitled to compensation; or (2) acted in bad faith in delivering the tile and billing apрellant, thereby engaging in conduct incompatible with seeking an unjust enrichment recovery. An agreement is not needed for an unjust enrichment recovery, however. “The theоry of unjust enrichment applies when as a matter of fact there is no legal contract . . . , but where the party sought to be charged has been conferred a benefit by thе party contending an unjust enrichment which the benefited party equitably ought to return or compensate for. [Cits.]”
Regional Pacesetters v. Halpern Enterprises,
Appellant also argues that benefits must be “knowingly” accepted before those benefits can provide the basis for unjust enrichment. See, e.g.,
Ginsberg v. Termotto,
2. In its second enumeration of error, appellant challenges the trial court’s decision that interest on the unjust enrichment award should run from June 29, 1990, the date of the trial court’s first ruling in this case, rather than from November 4, 1991, the date on which the trial court ruled appellant had been unjustly enriched and established the reasonable value of the delivered goods. An action seeking an unjust enrichment recovery for the value of goods delivered is an action for unliquidated damages. Sеe
Noble v. Hunt,
Appellee suggests that, rather than awarding pre-judgment interest on an unliquidated claim, the trial court’s second judgment was actually amending the original judgment nunc pro tunc, so that conceptually the two judgments are one and the same, effective as of the earlier date. Totally apart from the fact that the original judgment was previously vacated on appeal, however, this court has held that a court’s power to amend nunc pro tunc is the power to correct inadvertent errors or omissions in the record to reflect the truth of what happened; it “does not include the power to supply judicial omissions so as to include what a court might or should have decided, but did not actually so decide.”
Allen v. Community Loan & Invest. Corp.,
Judgment affirmed in part and reversed in part.