Capacity

Front 1

Capacity

Back 1

What if one of the parties, because of a particular vulnerability, cannot and does not appreciate the nature and effect of what they have agreed to?

Front 2

Minors

Back 2

Section 2 of the Age of Majority Act 1985 reduced the age of majority from 21 years to 18 years.

Front 3

Contracts with Minors

Back 3

Contracts with minors can be divided into a number of categories:

(a) Contracts for necessary goods and services;(b) Beneficial contracts of service;

(c) Contracts which are voidable by the minor;

(d) Contracts which are subject to the Infants Relief Act 1874.

Front 4

Contracts for Necessaries

Back 4

Contracts for the sale of necessary goods are binding on a minor and on the seller.

Everyone regardless of age has certain basic needs that must be looked after.

Front 5

Nash v Inman [1908]

Back 5

Supplier must establish two things before a contract will be regarded as one for necessaries, namely:

(1) suitability of the goods with reference to the age and position of the minor;

(2) the minor actually needs the goods in the sense that he does not already have an adequate supply of them.

11 fancy waistcoats to an Oxford student was deemed a contract for the sale of luxuries on the grounds that the minor already had an adequate supply of clothing.

Front 6

Chapple v Cooper (1844)

Back 6

“Things necessary are those without which an individual cannot reasonably exist. In the first place, food, raiment, lodging and the like. About these there is no doubt. Again as the proper cultivation of the mind is as expedient as the support of the body, instruction in art or trade, or intellectual, moral and religious information may be a necessary also.”

Front 7

Skrine v Gordon (1875)

Back 7

A horse required for stag hunting is not a necessary, but rather a luxury or amusement

Front 8

De Francesco v Barnum (1877)

Back 8

The approach which the Courts take is to consider the contract as a whole and ask whether objectively speaking it can be said to be to the benefit of the minor.

Front 9

Toronto Malboro Hockey Club v Tonnelli (1979)

Back 9

Defendant joined a junior Canadian Hockey Club. Contract was a standard one used by many junior clubs. Part of the contract - bound by a number of onerous penalty clauses and agreed that if he was signed by a North American Club - a percentage of his wage to the plaintiff even after his contract with them had been terminated. On balance, a majority of the Court concluded that this contract of employment/service was not to the benefit of the plaintiff.

Front 10

Doyle v White City Stadium Limited [1935]

Back 10

Plaintiff minor was a professional boxer. Agreement with the organisers of a fight that he would be paid £3,000 win, lose or draw. He also had a license with the British Boxing Board (the license here was treated as a kind of contract). Without this license he would not have been permitted to fight. One of the terms of the license was that if a fighter delivered a low blow to the other he had to forfeit the purse for that fight. During the bout the plaintiff was disqualified for delivering a low blow to the other fighter and accordingly lost. He claimed that he was not bound by the license with the Boxing Board as he was a minor. The Court considered the license as an equivalent to a contract of training as without it the plaintiff could not have earned a living as a boxer.