FORMATION OF CONTRACTS: COMPETENCY OF PARTIES 1. Requisites of a contract.—We have already said that there are four requisites to the validity of a con tract, namely, parties legally capable of contracting; consent legally given; an object; and a lawful cause or consideration. There must not be fraud, error or undue influence, such as threats or violence.
2. common law rule is that every person is capable of making a contract, unless his in capacity is expressly declared by law. By capacity is meant that a person must be of age, lie must be in his right mind and able to understand what he is doing, and he must not be excluded as falling within the classes described as incompetent. The following per sons are subject to defective capacity: (1) Minors (2) Interdicted persons (3) Married women in certain cases (4) Persons insane or intoxicated, or otherwise un able to consent, owing to weakness of understanding.
3. legal age of majority is almost universally the age of twenty-one years. Persons under that age, both male and female, are infants in the eves of the law, and while they may enter into con tracts, they cannot as a general rule be bound by them.
The contracts of a minor are voidable at his option. He has the privilege of refusing to be bound by his contracts, the idea being that as an infant he needs protection, and must be protected against his own acts, or against the acts of persons better able than he to judgeof the benefit to be derived froM a particular contract. An infant is, however, bound to pay for necessaries, tho no more than the reasonable value thereof.
4. An infant's liability for term includes more than the mere food that will keep him alive, or the mere clothes that will keep him warm. Such food and clothes as are suitable to his station in life and to his particular circumstances at the time of the contract are covered by the term. Necessaries may, therefore, be food and clothing, medicines and medical attendance, at least a common school educa tion—under certain circumstances even a college edu cation, where this is not unreasonable, having regard always to the minor's station in life. But necessaries would not include mere luxuries, such as champagne, unless ordered by a doctor, or a fancy waistcoat, when he already has several. The term may include a watch, if the minor has not already one, especially if the watch is within the minor's means. It has been held to include a horse, a bicycle and a mod erate amount of jewelry, under the same proviso. But articles of mere ornament and luxury, unless luxurious articles of utility, would certainly be ex cluded.
If a minor buys a horse, under the advice of his doctor, for the purpose of exercise, the bargain would be binding if the price were reasonable. If he bought it for use in some business enterprise, it might be hard to consider it a necessary. Articles which
he buys for the mere pleasure that they may give him, affix) they may be useful, are not necessaries.
If a minor is living with his father or with a guar dian who gives him all reasonable necessaries and sup ports him, the minor will not be liable if he buys other food and clothing on credit, and persons dealing with him do so at their peril. If they sue him, they must be able to show that the minor really needed the articles in question.
A minor who is married will be held liable for the necessaries supplied to his wife. A minor who has entered into the contract of marriage cannot be re leased from his contract on the ground of lesion— that is, on the ground that he has suffered injury.
5. Legal obligations of common law rule is that a husband is liable for the debts of his wife contracted before her marriage, and a minor who is a husband apparently could not plead his infancy as a defence. In certain cases a minor may contract un der the authority or direction of the law (as, for ex ample, if he enlists in the army), and his contract will be enforced. So also if a minor is a mortgagee, and upon payment of the debt he reconveys the property, lie has performed a legal obligation, and is bound by his act. Ordinarily speaking, however, and with the exceptions we have discussed, a minor may at his op tion carry out his contracts or treat them as void, un less he ha's been properly authorized to make the con tract. If he makes a contract for personal services, or enters into a partnership, or gives a promissory note, or buys or sells either movable or immovable property, he may refuse to be bound.' '6. Disaffirmance by an general rule is that an infant may avoid his voidable contracts either before or within a reasonable time after becom ing of It has been decided that a minor cannot deprive himself of his privilege of voiding, after he becomes of age, his contract made during minority. If an infant pays a sum of money under a contract, says Pollock, in consideration of which the contract is partly or wholly performed by the other party, he cannot ac quire any right to recover the money by rescinding the contract when he comes of age So if he enters into a partnership agreement and pays a premium, he can not, while he is a minor or afterwards, recover the premium. He may repudiate his contract in va rious ways; expressly, in writing or in words, or even by his conduct. If the contract is executory, that is, a contract under which he is bound to do some thing, he may refuse to act, and if he is sued he may plead the fact of his minority. If he sells a prop erty to one person, it would be a sufficient repudiation of his contract if after becoming of age he sold it to another person, tho in such case he would have to re turn to the first purchaser the money received from him.