Frank Spangler Co. v. Haupt

Citations

• 53 Pa. Super. 545
• 1913 Pa. Super. LEXIS 217

Syllabus

<p>Contracts — Infants—Protection of infants — Disaffirmance of contract.</p> <p>1. Except for necessaries an infant is not competent to bind himself, nor liable on the contracts he has made.</p> <p>2. Where an infant has made no misrepresentation as to his, age, the mere fact that the person with whom he deals does not know his'-, minority, or even has reason to believe from his appearance that he was of age, does not render the contract valid, or estop the infant from disaffirming it; nor will the mere fact that the infant does nht volunteer information as to his age invalidate his contracta _</p> <p>3. The mere silence of an infant as to his age;¡£^en^a]|j¡i3©-a'*éontraet, does not constitute a fraudAyhich c&srfee ma&e tfie'basis of an action against him for deceit. • * 1</p> <p>4. A young man named D. F. Haupt between twenty and twenty-one years of age, took charge of his father’s lumber busuness after his mother had carried it on, about one year. The father’s name was D. P. Haupt. D. F; Haupt. adopted a letter head in which he used the words “Established in 1862,” and also the words “Wholesale and Retail Dealer in Lumber and Buildmg Materials.” Under this letter head D. F. Haupt wrote a letter ordering a car load of lumber and stating that he was the successor of D. P. Haupt. The dealer to whom the letter was addressed furnished ti^e lumber, but when D. F. Haupt came of age he repudiated the contract; as he did several others which he had made in a similar way. Held, that the dealer who had furnished the lumber could not maintain an action of deceit to recover the price of it.</p> <p>5. If a wrong grows out of contract relations, and the real injury consists in the nonperformance of a contract into which the party wronged has entered with an infant, the law will not permit the former to enforce the contract indirectly by counting on the infant’s neglect to perform it, or omission of duty under it, as a tort.</p>