§ I. On Minors

836. • Minors (minors, infants) are called those who have not reached the age fixed by law, so that, the authority of the father or guardian assigned to them being set aside, they are able to act civilly. By the law in force among us, anyone who has completed the twenty-first year is held as major. In many States women born 18 years ago, in some 16 years, are majors. Let each one consult the laws of his own State.

Minors are some not emancipated, but others emancipated. The former are simply subjected to the authority of father or guardian. But the latter are those who have been freed from the aforesaid authority through the benefit of emancipation; but they are freed either by the deed of the father permitting the minor to administer and contract for some years, or by sentence of the judge.¹

837. • In most, not to say in all, of our States, the principal statutes of the civil laws concerning the contracts of minors are nearly these:

1° "No minor can bind him or her self by contract for anything except necessaries, - such as food, clothing, or education, and for which the parent had failed to provide. If he or she contracts for other than necessaries, on attaining his or her majority, the contract is voidable at his or her option."

2° "Every contract made by a minor which is to his or her injury, is void; but a contract which is clearly to his or her benefit, is good; and any contract that is uncertain, whether injurious or beneficial, is voidable or not, as he or she may choose."

3° "If a minor be coaxed, cajoled, or forced into an unwilling contract, he or she may repudiate the same on becoming of age."

4° "If a minor obtain goods on the pretence that he or she is of age, and then refuse payment on the ground that he or she is or was not then of age, the creditor cannot recover the value of the goods, but he can have the minor so guilty punished for fraud."

5° "When a minor executes a contract, and pays money, or delivers property on the same, he cannot afterward disaffirm such contract and recover the money or property, unless he restores to the other party the consideration received from him for such money or property."¹

6° A minor emancipated cannot contract beyond the limits of his emancipation.

838. • Kent explains the relation of guardians to minors in nearly these terms.²

1° "He cannot act for his own benefit in any contract, or purchase, or sale, as to the subject of the trust."

2° "The guardian of the estate has no further concern with or control over the real estate than what relates to the leasing of it, and the reception of the rents and profits, and it is his duty to place the ward's land upon lease. ... If he neglects to put the ward's money at interest, but negligently, and for an unreasonable time, suffers it to lie idle, or mingles it with his own, the court will charge him with simple interest, and, in cases of gross delinquency, with compound interest. ... Every guardian ... is bound to keep safely the real and personal estate of his ward, and to account for the personal estate, and the issues and profits of the real estate; and if he makes or suffers any waste, sale, or destruction of the inheritance, he is liable to be removed, and to answer in treble damages."

3° "He cannot sell without the authority of the Court of Chancery. He may sell the personal estate for the purposes of the trust, without a previous order of the court. ... The power resides in the Court of Chancery to change the property of infants from real into personal, and from personal into real, whenever it appears to be manifestly for the infant's benefit."

839. Resolutions. - 1° A minor can with safe conscience use the benefit of the law, the case of bad faith being set aside, since the law was made in his favor.

Nevertheless he cannot seek rescission so that he be exempted from restitution of money which he received as a loan for consumption and squandered, although he carried back no profit from it;³ for he is bound to fulfill the obligation which he certainly knew while he was seeking the money. From elsewhere, it must be attributed to his fault if he perceived no advantage from it.

2° He who contracted with a minor can stand by the contract until nullity is invoked by the minor, or by his father or guardian. Yet private petition suffices so that he is bound to rescission when the injury is altogether open.

3° The minor alone, both by himself and through others by whom he is represented, can seek rescission of contract. Hence those who contracted with him cannot oppose his incapacity.

4° A minor can no longer impugn an act performed in minority when, already having become major, he has ratified it; because he was fully fit to contract when he ratified the act.