Court Opinion

ID: 9657603
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 20:31:29.145813+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:46.718575
License: Public Domain

Hallows, C. J.
(dissenting). The majority opinion on the issue of whether an emancipated minor legally should be responsible for his contracts “doth protest too much.” After giving very cogent reasons why the common-law rule should be abandoned, the opinion refrains from reshaping the rule to meet reality. Minors are emancipated by a valid marriage and also by entering military service. If they are mature enough to become parents and assume the responsibility of raising other minors and if they are mature enough to be drafted or volunteer to bear arms and sacrifice their life for their country, then they are mature enough to make binding contracts in the marketplace. The magical age limit of twenty-one years as an indication of contractual maturity no longer has a basis in fact or in public policy.
*30My second ground of the dissent is that an automobile to this respondent was a necessity and therefore the contract could not be disaffirmed. Here, we have a minor, aged twenty years and seven months, the father of a child, and working. While the record shows there is some public transportation to his present place of work, it also shows he borrowed his mother’s car to go to and from work. Automobiles for parents under twenty-one years of age to go to and from work in our current society may well be a necessity and I think in this case the record shows it is. An automobile as a means of transportation to earn a living should not be considered a nonnecessity because the owner is five months too young. I would reverse.