7 Ga. 568 | Ga. | 1849
By the Court. —
delivering the opinion.
Two grounds of error are alleged to the judgment of the Court below, in this case. First, in refusing to give to the Jury the instructions asked by the counsel for the complainant. Second, in giving to the Jury the instructions as set forth in the recoi'd before us.
It appears that the defendant had purchased from the complainant’s intestate a negro, for which he paid a part of the purchase money, and executed his note for the balance. At the time this contract was executed, the defendant was an infant, who took the negro into his possession. When sued upon the note given for the balance of the purchase money for the negro, after attaining full age, he filed the plea of infancy to the action upon the note, and at the trial, sustained his plea by proof, whereupon the plaintiff in that action dismissed it.
The complainant then filed his bill, setting forth the facts of the case, and prayed for a decree to have the negro sold, and out of the proceeds of such sale, to pay the defendant the amount paid by him to the complainant’s intestate, and the balance thereof to be paid to the complainant.
The instructions asked by the complainant’s counsel assert the proposition, that the contract for the-'sale of the negro was disaffirmed by the defendant, by his plea of infancy to the action on
•1ft has been insisted on the argument, that when an infant has received property by virtue of an executed contract made with an adult, that when he arrives of age and disaffirms the- contract, by his plea of infancy to the note given for the property so received, the adult cannot recover from the infant, either the purchase money for the property sold to him, or the property. Upon what legal principle this doctrine can be supported, we are unable to determine; certainly upon no past principle.
Let the judgment of the Court below be reversed, on the ground that the Court erred in not giving the instructions as requested by the complainant’s counsel, and in giving the instructions as set forth in the record.