3 Ga. App. 800 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1908
Dora Mauldin, of Tunnel Hill, Georgia, a seventeen-year-old girl, an orphan, whose whole estate consisted of about $75, came to Atlanta and, over the objection of her guardian, made a contract with the defendant to take a five-months course in
In our judgment the determination whether the course in shorthand would have been such a necessary thing as to charge the plaintiff with a liability therefor if she had taken it is not in the case. The right to recover from an infant for necessaries does not arise out of the contract between the parties, but from a quasi-eontractual relation arising by operation of law. Keener on Quasi Contracts, 20. The quality of justice in the law, not the quality of efficacy in the infant’s agreement, is the basis of the right of the person who has furnished the necessaries to hold the infant bound therefor. A corollary to the foregoing principle is the well-recognized rule that an infant may repudiate an executory contract for necessaries. The case of Jones v. Valentines’ School of Telegraphy, 42 Wis. 318 (99 N. W. 1043), is absolutely identical in every essential fact and feature with the case at bar. The plaintiff there, an infant, paid for a scholarship in a business school, but after-wards, concluding not to enjoy the privilege, demanded a return of the money, which was refused; whereupon he sued for it. The court says: “It is elementary law that an infant is bound by implied contract to pay reasonably for necessaries' furnished him. The limitations of the rule are plainly indicated by the statement of it. In order that the infant may be bound, all the circumstances must exist essential to raise a promise by implication of law.
There is a suggestion in the argument that the plaintiff’s right to recover back the money may be defeated on the theory that she did not pay the defendant the money, but that her guardian paid it, making the contract his contract. This position is likewise untenable. It is a well-recognized rule that a minor may recover from whomsoever knowingly received any of his money paid out by his guardian without lawful authority. This question is discussed in the case of Howard v. Cassels, 105 Ga. 412 (31 S. E. 562, 70 Am. St. R. 44). Tt requires the approval of. the ordinary
Judgment reversed.