Court Opinion

ID: 9810421
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:49:42.202079+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:39:54.960718
License: Public Domain

Stacy, J.,
dissenting: I recognize the force of the argument that the dominant purpose of the law in permitting- infants to disaffirm their contracts is- to protect children and those of tender years from their own improvidence, or want of discretion, and from the wiles of designing men. But when this right is used to relieve minors from their liability for torts and deliberate wrongs, the very protection which was intended as a shield to them becomes a sword in their bands. Jealous as the law may be of the rights of infants; it seems to me that in the case at bar this solicitude bas reached the stage of “a vaulting ambition which o’erleaps itself and falls on t’other side.”
Fraud will vitiate any contract at the election of the party defrauded. Van Gilder v. Bullen, 159 N. C., 291. Here the plaintiff bas elected to rescind the contract and to treat it as a nullity. With the agreement out of the way, what is to bar the plaintiff from proceeding in an action ex delictof the suit is not to enforce the contract; it is alleged that there is none. the action is based upon the tort of deceit. the measure of damages is different from what it would be in an action founded on contract. the plaintiff is not entitled to recover the purchase price of the machine or the balance due under the contract, for the infant may bave agreed to pay too much. the plaintiff is limited in its recovery to what it bas actually lost. Burley v. Russell, 10 N. H., 184; 34 Am. Dec., 146. See, also, Food Co. v. Elliott, 151 N. C., 396. This is not undertaking to do by indirection what the law forbids from being done directly. There is no effort to enforce the contract, but the plaintiff’s suit is to recover damages in an action sounding in tort. See note, 57 L. R. A., p. 675.
*120Tbe authorities elsewhere are in hopeless conflict. They are fairly marshaled in the opinion of the Court. I am content to place my dissent upon the reasons there assigned, and upon the additional reasons which have just been given. Without regard to the weight of authority — which seems to be in doubt — I hold it to be a sound principle of law, certainly approved in morals, that an infant who obtains my property by deceit injures me no less than the infant who negligently destroys that which is mine. If he be liable in the latter case, where the heart is free from guilt, why should he not be required to answer in the former, where forsooth his moral turpitude makes the injury more reprehensible on his part if not more grievous to me? The absence of a contract in the one case and its existence in the other is not a sufficient reason for the difference. Wallace v. Morss, 5 Hill, 391. A contract induced by fraud may be rescinded and treated as a nullity by the injured party, and, where this is done, it no longer exists as a shield for the infant defendant. The plaintiff should not be deprived of the right to rescind a fraudulent contract and sue for damages simply because the one who practiced the fraud is a minor. This would not be making the contract the substantial basis of the action, but it would be in fact a distinct rescission of the contract and an election to sue in tort.
Daly, F. J., in Eckstein, v. Frank, 1 Daly, 334 (citing in support authorities from New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont, United States Supreme Court, Texas, South Carolina, and Maine), states the law of New York as follows: “When an infant obtains property by falsely representing himself to be of full age, an action of tort may be maintained against him, either to recover it back or to recover damages, upon the ground that he obtained the possession of it wrongfully. It has long been the rule in courts of equity that an infant will be held liable where he obtains property by a false representation respecting his age. Uf an infant is old and cunning enough/ says Lord Chancellor Cowper, ‘to contrive and carry out a fraud, he ought to make satisfaction for it’ (2 Eq. Ca. Ab., 515), and the good sense and justice of requiring him to do so has been held in the numerous cases cited to be as applicable in a court of law as in a court of equity.”
The decision in Loan Assn. v. Black, 119 N. C., 323, is not at variance with this position, for there the suit was brought to recover on contract.
Clase, O. J., concurs in dissent.