Court Opinion

ID: 9589600
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:46:41.141818+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:47.132727
License: Public Domain

Lake, J.,
dissenting:
The defendant, a young man nineteen years old, with better than average education, has benefited from his use of the plaintiff’s services for which he promised to pay an agreed amount. Now, having received the full benefit he desired, he refuses to pay for it. He does not contend, and there is nothing in the record before us to suggest, that the plaintiff overcharged him, or otherwise took any advantage of him. Nothing in this record arouses sympathy for the defendant. This is one of those hard cases which so frequently have turned out to be “quicksands of the law.” In my view, the majority, in its proper desire to avoid an injustice to this plaintiff, has taken a step into quicksand.
As the majority opinion shows clearly, since a time prior to Columbus’ discovery of America, it has been the well settled rule of the common law, repeatedly stated by this Court, that an infant’s contract may be disaffirmed by him without liability, unless it is a contract for what the law calls “necessaries.” If the contract is one for necessaries, the infant is liable for the reasonable value of what he received.
The reason for this rule, in both its aspects, is the desire of the law to protect the infant. His liability to pay for necessaries is not imposed so as to protect an adult supplier against a shrewdly scheming infant. It is imposed solely because otherwise the infant, *289honest or not, might be unable to acquire that which he must have for the support of himself and his dependents. The rule permits the infant to refuse to carry out other contracts irrespective of the particular infant’s intelligence, education or experience in business. It does not depend upon whether the particular contract was fair or unfair. It is immaterial, under this rule, that the application of it results in a loss to an adult who dealt in good faith with an unscrupulous infant.
For five hundred years English and American societies and economies have thrived under this rule and infants have found employment. It may well be that a better rule can be devised. I find nothing in this record, or in current social and economic conditions, to support the conclusion that either our society or our economy would suffer substantially if we adhere to the rule for one more year. Then the General Assembly of 1971 will be in session and can make such changes as may be necessary.
Stripped of emotional aspects, this case presents but one question, assuming the rule heretofore established is to be followed: Is an infant’s contract for the services of an employment agency, under the circumstances disclosed in this record, a contract for necessaries? I do not think it is. That is, infants will not be seriously threatened with denial of employment if we hold they may disaffirm their contracts with employment agencies.
In the five hundred year life of this rule it has become well settled that whether goods or services are a necessary depends upon the facts in each case. What may be a necessary for one infant may not be for another differently situated. What was a necessary in 1770 may not be so in 1970, and vice versa. It is, however, equally well settled that a “necessary” is something more urgently needed than a thing or a service which is merely a convenience or an assistance to the infant. This is the established rule both in America and England, apart from statute.
In Williston on Contracts, 3rd ed., § 241, it is said:
“Necessaries are limited by the courts as closely as possible, and generally come under the heads of food, or clothing of a reasonable kind, purchased for the use of the infant or of his family.”
In Pollock’s Principles of Contracts, pp. 49-50, it is said:
“It is obvious, however, that it is in truth a question of common sense and experience what is or is not'reasonably required by a person in a given station and circumstances, and one on *290which not much light can be thrown by the statement in a general form of rules founded on extreme cases. It is to be borne in mind * * * that the question is not whether the things are such that a person of the defendants means may reasonably buy and pay, for them, but whether they can reasonably be said to be so necessary for him that, though an infant, he must obtain them on credit rather than go without. For the purpose of deciding this question the Court will take judicial notice of the ordinary customs and usages of society.
“If, on these preliminary considerations, the Court decides that there is evidence on which the supplies in question may reasonably be treated as necessaries, then it is for the jury to say whether they were in fact necessaries for the defendant under all the circumstances of the case.” (Emphasis added.)
These principles are reflected in the former decisions of this Court cited in the majority opinion.
That the services of the employment agency in giving this defendant names of prospective employers was a convenience and an aid to him in getting a job with a minimum of inquiry and search from door to door is no doubt true. In the present eagerness of industry to find trained engineers, I cannot agree that such services are a “necessary” for an engineering student nearing graduation from Gaston Tech and seeking employment in the Charlotte area.
The majority opinion says: “Admittedly, the decisions of the District Court and of the Court of Appeals rest squarely on the ancient rule of the common law as applied in prior decisions of this Court.”
After reciting several instances in which the Legislature of this State has modified the common law rule, the majority, “without awaiting additional statutory changes, whether general or piecemeal,” now changes the law upon which the decisions of the lower courts “rest squarely.” In justification, the majority opinion quotes former Chief Justice Vanderbilt of the Supreme Court of New Jersey as saying: “The nature of the common law requires that each time a rule of law is applied it be carefully scrutinized to make sure that the conditions and needs of the times have not so changed as to make further application of it the instrument of injustice (Emphasis added.)
This is not my conception of the nature of the common law, nor is it my understanding of the authority conferred upon this Court by the people of North Carolina. The authority of the people, *291through their representatives in the State Government, to change the common law when conditions and needs have so changed as to render the law unjust or unwise is clear. They have, however, seen fit to vest this authority in the Legislature and not in us. N. C. Constitution, Art. I, § 8; Art. II, § 1. This power to change established law to meet changes in conditions is the essence of the legislative power.
The tragic turmoil in our public schools had its beginning in the decision of another court to assume the power to change the law of the land to conform to its conception of justice in a new time. No such social upheaval will result from the decision of the majority in this case, of course, but it is the same kind of error. It weakens, however so slightly, the wall of separation which the people of this State built between the proper functions of the several divisions of their government. The majority opinion, itself, shows this step is unnecessary for it cites at least six instances in which the Legislature has acted in recent years to make changes in this small field of the law. I am not persuaded that there is such an urgent necessity for the change now made by this decision that it cannot safely wait another year. The majority opinion shows that in England the change felt desirable there was made by Act of Parliament.
If some change is necessary, the majority opinion gives the trial courts no standard to guide them in other cases. The majority opinion expressly approves this statement from 41 Indiana Law Journal 140: “But this protection must not become a straightjacket stifling the economic and social advancement of .infants who have the need and maturity to contract.” How are the trial judges tomorrow to distinguish between the infant who does and the infant who does not have “maturity”? What is the test of an infant’s “need” to contract? Again, the majority opinion says the previously accepted concept of “necessaries” should be enlarged to include “articles” and “services” which are “reasonably necessary” to enable the contracting infant to earn money to provide necessities of life for himself and his dependents. Are the services of an employment agency more necessary for this purpose than is an automobile for use in going from home to work? Is a nineteen year old, who has almost finished an engineering course, more in need of such an automobile than a seventeen year old drop-out from high school?
I am unable to find in current events overwhelming evidence that today’s nineteen year olds have more maturity of judgment than did those of a century ago and so have less need of protection. The present defendant, an exceptionally well educated one, has evaluated *292his economic credit and reputation for integrity in business transactions at something less than $295. In this I find little evidence of maturity of judgment.