Case ID: njl_3/html/0431-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Pennington, J. The Chief Justice .and Rossell, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

[*] HOUSTON against COOPER.
    OH CERTIORARI.
    A promissory note by an infant, is invalid.
    The action was brought by Cooper against Houston, on a note. The defense set up below was, that the defendant was an infant at the time the note was given. The plaintiff below recovered. The reasons assigned for the reversal of the judgment of the justice were :—
    1st. That the justice would not permit the family record, kept by the father of the defendant, to go in evidence to prove his age.
    2d. That the justice allowed unlawful testimony to go to the jury.
   [634]

Pennington, J.

There is so much obscurity in the record of the justice that it is difficult to collect from it the transactions in the court below, with satisfactory precision. So far as it respects the reasons relied on for the reversal of this judgment, it appears that the action was brought by Cooper on a note given by Houston for a balance agreed on in the exchange of horses, and that the defense set up was that the defendant below, Houston, was under age at the time of the contract. That the justice overruled the evidence offered of a memorandum made by the father of Houston, of the age of Houston, because the town record was not produced. What the town record in this respect means, is hard to tellwhether the significant marks made by the midwife on the ceiling of her room or the shelves of her cupboard, or the christening register sometimes kept by the parson of the parish, is immaterial. The law knows no town records of births. The infancy however of the defendant was proved by witnesses, and then the justice admitted evidence to prove that about the time the defendant made his contract, he traded at times for himself, although his father had forbid him. The adniission of this testimony [*] was unquestionably erroneous. That an infant undertakes to trade for himself does not cure the incapacity of his infancy. It is the real or supposed incapacity of mind in the infant, to make judicious contracts, that the law renders invalid his bargains, and the more contracts he makes the more danger of injury and ruin to himself, which the law is intended to guard against; and if any dealing require judgment and discretion, it is that of exchanging horses. I am clearly of opixdon that this judgment be reversed.

The Chief Justice .and Rossell, J.

Were of the same opinion.

Judgment x’eversed.