State v. Howard
| Decision Date | 28 February 1883 |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE v. J. O. HOWARD. |
INDICTMENT for misdemeanor tried at Fall Term, 1882, of PENDER Superior Court, before Gilmer, J.
The indictment was preferred under the act of 1873-'74, ch. 31, for disposing of crops at the time under the lien of a mortgage, given by the defendant to the prosecutor to secure advances.
It was admitted that at the date of the mortgage, and at the date of the alleged disposition and use of the corn raised by the defendant and under the lien of said mortgage, and also at the date of the indictment, the defendant was under the age of twenty-one years. There was no evidence of any ratification by the defendant of the mortgage after he arrived at full age.
The defendant asked the court to instruct the jury that the contract of the defendant being voidable, and the alleged removal occurring while he was still an infant, he was entitled to a verdict of not guilty. His Honor refused to give the instruction, and the defendant excepted. Verdict of guilty; judgment; appeal by defendant.
Attorney-General, for the State .
No counsel for defendant.
It is well settled that an infant can make no binding contract except for necessaries, which include such things as his meat, drink, apparel, physic, nursing while sick, schooling, &c. But we have yet to find an authority for holding, that the business of farming falls within the exception to the exemption of an infant upon his contracts. Parsons in his work on Contracts (Vol. 1, page 313) says, an infant cannot enter into contracts of business and trade, “for this,” he says, “is not necessary and might expose him to the misfortune of entering upon adult life with the burdens of bankruptcy resting upon him.”
In Freeman v. Bridger, 4 Jones, 1, which was an action brought against an infant to recover the value of timber furnished him to build a house on his land, it was held it was not a necessary. PEARSON, C. J., who spoke for the court, said: “If the infant was bound to pay for the timber, he must pay for the nails, glass, &c., the wages of the workmen; in other words, for the whole house; and if this be so on the ground that it is necessary for him to have a house to live in, it follows that he must pay for a horse, a plough, a wagon, & c., because such things are necessary to enable him to cultivate his land; then would follow a few cattle and hogs; so the result would be to make the exception broader than the general rule, and take from infants that protection which the law considers they stand in need of by reason of their want of discretion.”
The contract in this case then, was not for a necessary.
But it is contended that an infant may bind himself upon his...
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