Minor Child - Right to Contract

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Date Retrieved:	2024-05-19
CLNP Page ID:	2279
Page Categories:	Contract Law, Leases, & Sub-Letting (LTB), Contract Law
Citation:	Minor Child - Right to Contract, CLNP 2279, <https://rvt.link/8p>, retrieved on 2024-05-19
Editor:	Sharvey
Last Updated:	2023/09/21

Johnstone v. Hepditch Jr., 2018 NBQB 100 (CanLII)

[11] In Bayview Credit Union Ltd. v. Daigle (1983) 1983 CanLII 2923 (NB KB), 3 D.L.R. (4th) 95; 1983 CanLII 2923, Higgins J. commented on the classification of contracts involving minors at paragraph 5:

Contracts involving minors may generally be classified into four main classes as follows:

1. enforceable contracts for necessities;

2. voidable contracts which the infant must repudiate during minority or within a reasonable time thereafter;

3. voidable contracts which are not binding unless and until ratified after attaining majority; and

4. contracts which are absolutely void.

See Chitty on Contracts, 24th ed. (1977), pp. 220-1, paras. 473-4.

...

[14] The Ontario Court went on to say at paragraphs 10-11:

The issue

10 I am faced with the troublesome issue of determining whether the plaintiff has any recourse against the infant defendant. There is no question that Maria Jr. obtained funds which were not hers and that she was unjustly enriched. Notwithstanding the bank’s clear entitlement to these funds, Maria Jr. alleges that her age constitutes a full defence to this claim. She further claims that she is entitled to a return of the sum of $1,200 which was seized by the bank when it realized that a refund would not be forthcoming.

The contract liability of infants

11 It has long been understood that infants do not generally have the capacity to enter into contracts. The Court of Appeal of Ontario in McBride v. Appleton, 1945 CanLII 76 (ON CA), [1946] O.R. 17, [1946] 2 D.L.R. 16, at p. 27 O.R., p. 24 D.L.R. states:

The contract of an infant is considered in law as different from the contracts of other persons. The law exercises, as it were, a guardianship of the infant, using its power in some cases to nullify completely contractual transactions with an infant, and in other cases giving the privilege to the infant of saying during his infancy, and for a reasonable time thereafter, that he will not be bound by a contract to which he is a party.

The law in this area is somewhat complex as a result of the different conflicting interests which must be weighed when assessing the liability of infants on contracts they have entered into. S.M. Waddams expresses the lawmakers’ concerns as follows in The Law of Contracts, 2nd ed. (Aurora, Ont.: Canada Law Book, 1984), at p. 495:

The protection of weaker parties is an essential part of any civilized law of contracts. It was argued in the chapter on unconscionability that freedom of contract cannot be an absolute value but that other values such as fairness, equity, and the avoidance of unjust enrichment, must be weighed in the balance. For these reasons the law of contracts has always given special protection to infants. On the other hand, some protection is needed for a party dealing with an infant, and an entire freedom to avoid contracts might in the long term rebound to the detriment of infants, for few would advance credit even for necessaries to one whose promise to pay was not binding. The complexity of the present law springs from these conflicting objectives.