Court Opinion

ID: 9681670
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:54:24.06775+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:35.292032
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
Appellee urges that since it was admitted by appellant’s attorney in oral argument before this Court that neither he nor his brother had been emancipated, they were, as a matter of law, precluded from suing and obtaining judgment against their father. Based upon this premise, appellee argues that since they were barred from a recovery for their services, no employment contract came into existence and as a result, neither he nor his younger brother could have been employees of their father. Consequently, he continues to insist that the exclusionary clause in the policy does not apply to him. As we view it, the argument proceeds upon the false premise that an unemanci-pated minor is without legal capacity to enter into an employment contract with a parent. There is nothing to prevent a father and his son from entering into a contract of employment. 67 C.J.S., Parent and Child, § 38; 98 C.J.S., Work and Labor, § 17; Bolman v. Kark Rendering Plant, 418 S.W.2d 39 (Missouri Supreme Court, 1967). Whether an uneman-cipated minor can sue and obtain judgment against a parent for his services would depend, among other things, upon whether or not the parent set up unemanci-pation as a defense. In any event, the question of whether or not the insured’s minor sons could eventually recover judgment would not be controlling in determining the ultimate issue of whether or not a contract of employment existed.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.