If a school teacher who has not the proper license undertakes to teach and does teach in a school for a number of months at a good salary, be will not be entitled to recover for his services. A doctor who practises without the necessary license or qualification would be in the same position. The sale of tobacco may be prohibited by statute on a Sunday; a tobac conist who sold tobacco on a Sunday on credit would not be entitled to collect.
A director of a railway company cannot have a private interest in a contract with the company. Thus if a director of a railway company which is put ting up a building makes a secret partnership with the contractor who is doing the work, his contract is il legal, and he could not sue his partner for a division of profits.
It is illegal to pay money or undertake to pay money to avoid or prevent the prosecution of a crim inal. Thus the Court of Appeals of the Province of Quebec has held that where a bank clerk embezzled money and his father gave the bank a note to cover the amount stolen, on the condition that the bank would drop the prosecution, and the bank accepted the note and went no further with the case, the note could not be collected.
A contract by which a Member of Parliament ac cepted money in return for his promise to vote as he might be directed by another person would be illegal.
Contracts between a lawyer and his client which stipulate that the lawyer, if the action is successful, will accept for his services a share of the money recovered, are illegal. Such contracts are deemed illegal because the lawyer, tho entitled to a reasonable fee, is able to judge of the outcome of the case, and hence the client is at a disadvantage.
If a person sells a grocery business and contracts that he will not, during a period of five years, engage in the grocery business in the same town, such an agreement is reasonable, is not in restraint of trade, and is, therefore, valid; but if the seller •agreed that he would not engage in the grocery business for the same period in any place in Canada, the contract would be unreasonable and void.
A loan to a person to enable him to run a bucket shop, it being agreed that the lender is to receive a share of the profits, would be illegal.
In certain jurisdictions, steamboat excursions may be prohibited on a Sunday. The captain or engineer or other person who assisted in running the excursion would be unable to collect his wages.
11. Reality of we have seen, the con sent of the parties to a contract must be expressed in some way. The minds of the parties must meet, but there must be something which indicates the fact. In other words, the consent must be real. The consent may, therefore, be unlawful or defective owing to mis take, misrepresentation, fraud, undue influence or duress.
Where a party to a contract can show that he gave his consent without understanding the nature of the contract, or the thing about which he was contracting, or something which was the principal consideration for making the contract, he may have it set aside. He may be able to prove fraud or misrepresentation by the other party, or show that by some form of violence lie was coerced into making the contract. In a sense the contract is good, but a person who has been led into it by error or fraud may have it declared void if he takes steps to do so before his right is pre scribed.
If a person, who has made a contract under any of the above circumstances, ratifies the contract or ac quiesces in it, he will not then be allowed to set it aside. In certain cases, however, as for example in the case of a promissory note, the maker may have signed in error, or as a result of some fraud or mis representation, but if the note gets into the hands of a third party who in good faith without notice of the defect gives value for it, the maker will be bound toward such third party.
12. Mistake or mistake may be one of fact or of law. A mistake of fact may be either of intention or expression. If the parties to a con tract do not mean the same thing, or one of them forms an untrue conclusion as to the subject matter of the contract, there has been a mistake of intention and the contract is void, because the minds of the par ties have not met.
Thus A may lend a horse to B, and B may think that A is giving it to him: there is no contract of gift. A man may sign a paper by which lie purports to sub scribe for shares in a company, and he pays $500. At the time he thought that he was subscribing for five fully paid-up shares. In the contract as drawn up he appears to subscribe for fifty shares of $100 upon which lie pays $10 each, or $500 on account. Such a contract has been set aside. Or if a man signs a promissory note and thinks it is merely an order for certain goods, he will not be bound by his mistake.