In Commerce Partnership 8098 Limited Partnership v. Equity Contracting Co., 695 So. 2d 383 (Fla. 4th DCA 1997) (en banc), the Court recognized that the term "quantum meruit" has been applied to contracts implied in fact as well as to those implied in law. The Court wrote in Commerce Partnership that: A contract implied in fact is one form of an enforceable contract; it is based on a tacit promise, one that is inferred in whole or in part from the parties' conduct, not solely from their words. Where an agreement is arrived at by words, oral or written, the contract is said to be "express." A contract implied in fact is not put into promissory words with sufficient clarity, so a fact finder must examine and interpret the parties' conduct to give definition to their unspoken agreement. It is to this process of defining an enforceable agreement that Florida courts have referred when they have indicated that contracts implied in fact "rest upon the assent of the parties." Common examples of contracts implied in fact are where a person performs services at another's request, or "where services are rendered by one person for another without his expressed request, but with his knowledge, and under circumstances" fairly raising the presumption that the parties understood and intended that compensation was to be paid. In these circumstances, the law implies the promise to pay a reasonable amount for the services. Id. at 385-86. In contrast to a contract implied in fact, "a contract implied in law, or quasi contract, is not based upon the finding, by a process of implication from the facts, of an agreement between the parties." Id. at 386. A contract implied in law is a legal fiction, an obligation created by the law without regard to the parties' expression of assent by their words or conduct. The fiction was adopted to provide a remedy where one party was unjustly enriched, where that party received a benefit under circumstances that made it unjust to retain it without giving compensation. Id. A necessary element of a cause of action for a contract implied in law is that the plaintiff has conferred a benefit on the defendant. See id. However, the enforceability of a contract implied in fact is based on an implied promise, "not on whether the defendant has received something of value." See id. at 387. In Commerce Partnership, the Court gave an example that is similar to the fact situation in this case: A common form of contract implied in fact is where one party has performed services at the request of another without discussion of compensation. These circumstances justify the inference of a promise to pay a reasonable amount for the service. The enforceability of this obligation turns on the implied promise, not on whether the defendant has received something of value. A contract implied in fact can be enforced even where a defendant has received nothing of value.Id.