8. Capacity

The law's worry is the other way from what people often assume. It is not only that adults might take advantage of a minor. It is also that a minor might take goods or money and then refuse to pay. Both sides of that problem are set out here.

Contracts that bind a minor

Two classes bind. Contracts for necessaries: goods or services suitable to the minor's station in life and to their actual needs at the time. Nash v Inman is the illustration for goods that were not necessaries because the minor was already well supplied. A contract of employment, or of apprenticeship, education or training, binds if on the whole it is for the minor's benefit. Clements v London and North Western Railway and Roberts v Gray are the training cases. Doyle v White City Stadium treated a boxer's licence, with its burdens, as beneficial overall. A harsh term can still make the contract void. De Francesco v Barnum is the dancing apprenticeship that was not for the minor's benefit.

Voidable contracts

Some contracts bind the minor unless they repudiate during minority or within a reasonable time of turning 18. The other party cannot repudiate. This is the place for contracts of continuing obligation: a lease, a partnership, shares in a company. Steinberg v Scala is the share case: a minor who repudiates in time need not keep paying calls, but cannot recover money already paid unless there has been a total failure of consideration.

Void contracts

At common law a contract that was neither valid nor voidable did not bind the minor. There are three effects. The minor is not liable on the contract. The other party may still have to perform if the minor sues, because the minor can enforce even where they cannot be enforced against. And property that has passed may stay where it is, subject to the later statutes, which stop a minor using incapacity as a trick to keep both the goods and the price.

Loans to a minor are not recoverable, and a lender who pays the minor's supplier direct is in no better position: Leslie v Shiell. A new promise to pay, made after majority, needs fresh consideration unless the statute has been complied with.