Court Opinion

ID: 6408466
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-06-25 11:50:47.399987+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:51:17.497376
License: Public Domain

Shaw, C. J.
The questions as to what contracts of an infant are void, and what voidable, and, in the latter case, what shall be deemed a disaffirmance, and what a ratification, are questions which have been much discussed, and in respect to which there are conflicting authorities. It is not my intention now to review them. Some points seem to be well settled.
If a minor gives a written promise for the purchase money for goods sold to him by an adult person, the contract is voidable and not void, and may be ratified by the infant, after coming of age. Whitney v. Dutch, 14 Mass. 457. It is also well settled, that it is the privilege of the minor only to disaffirm the contract, and, until he does so, the other party is bound by it. The minor, when of age, may regard it as ben eficial, and choose to affirm it. But if he elects to disaffirm it, he annuls it on both sides, ab initio, and the parties revert to the same situation as if the contract had not been made. If the minor refuses to pay the price, as he may, the contract of sale is annulled, and the goods revest in the vendor. Badger v. Phinney, 15 Mass. 359. But until some notice given by the purchaser, after coming of age, of his purpose to annul the contract, or some significant act done, the vendor cannot reclaim his property, and his taking of it would be a trespass. If, therefore, the minor purchaser, after coming of age, retains the specific property, treating it as his own, when it is in a condition to be restored, and it is of any value, and if, for an unreasonable time, he neglects to restore it, or to tender it, or give notice of his readiness to restore it, according to the circumstances of the property and of the parties, it manifests his determination to keep the property and affirm the contract. And further; if, after coming of age, he retains the property for his own use, or sells or otherwise disposes of it, *522such detention, use or disposition—which can be conscientiously done only on the assumption that the contract of sale was a valid one, and by it the property became his own — is evidence of an intention to affirm the contract, from which a ratification may be inferred. In the present case, the defendants retained the plough, one of the articles for which the note was given, between two and three years after they both came of age. Whether, if the contract had been rightfully disaffirmed, the vendor could have reclaimed the horse received by the defendants, in exchange for the one sold, after one of the defendants came of age, but not the other, we give no opinion. Retaining the plough brings the case within the principle. The court are of opinion that the directions of the iudge at the trial were right, and well adapted to the case presented by the evidence. See Boody v. McKenney, 10 Shepley, 517.

Exceptions overruled