Court Opinion

ID: 4927990
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2021-09-24 00:59:29.379339+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:13:34.298694
License: Public Domain

The opinion of the Court was drawn up by
Tenney J.
It is a general principle well settled, that parents are under obligation to support their minor children, and that they are entitled to their earnings. When a contract between the parent and child exists, that the latter shall enjoy the fruit of his labors; or when the parent neglects to support him, the rule will not apply. If the father, or person having the care and control of the minor, should consent to his marriage, this may be another exception to the principle, so far as his earnings are necessary for the support of his wife and children; for the consent to the marriage may imply a consent that he should, from his earnings, have the means of discharging his new obligations.
The statute requires, that when a male, under the age of twenty-one years is to be married, the consent of the parent, guardian, or other person having the care or government of such party within the State, shall be obtained before marriage. *533Rev. Slat. c. 87, <§>7. We cannot believe that the violation of an express provision of law, can secure to a minor, who is guilty thereof, a privilege, which he would not otherwise possess, and constitute another exception to the general law.
If the son is not entitled to his earnings, a payment to him of their value by his employer, (without the consent of the father, express, or implied) knowing his minority, cannot deprive the father of the right to recover a just compensation for the labor, of which he has been deprived without his own fault or neglect.
The case at bar finds, that the son, whose wages are claimed in this action, refused to live with his father, who provided every thing necessary for his comfort and convenience, lie went away without the knowledge, and married against the will and express direction, of his father. The father has in no way consented that he should have his earnings, but has always been ready and willing to support him in a manner becoming his degree and station in life. The defendants, knowing that he was a minor, without the knowledge or consent of his father, employed him as a seaman, and have paid him his wages in full.
To allow this defence to prevail would hold out encouragement to sons, impatient of parental control, while in their minority, to resist the reasonable authority of their fathers, and give the latter little means to secure their own legal rights beyond the exercise of physical restraint; would offer inducements to youth to enter into improvident and ill advised marriages, which maturer years would cause them to regret and deplore.
It is insisted that the defendants were authorized to suppose, that the son’s marriage was by the father’s consent. The father could not be deprived of that, which was his own, when no negligence was imputable to him, and the defendants by the knowledge of the son’s minority, could have informed themselves of the facts before they made payment to him.
Defendants to be defaulted, and judgment to be entered at the rate of $14 a month for the time the son was employed, and interest from the date of the writ.