Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

45 Mich. 142

Holmes v. Rice

Michigan Supreme Court

Decided January 5, 1881

Michigan Supreme Court · decided 1881-01-05

Trover by Sarah A. Holmes, against Rice and Dayton for the conversion' of a fanning mill. Defendants pleaded in justification a judgment in favor of Rice against Lorenzo Holmes, the plaintiff’s husband, and a seizure of the property by Dayton, as constable, to satisfy the execution.

Cited by 2 later decisions — most recently March 1951

2 state decisions

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Reversed · Decided 1881-01-05

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Marston, C. J.

¶1The law in recognizing the incapacity of infants to enter into certain contracts and declaring such contracts voidable does so for the infant’s protection. Their contracts are not void but voidable, and it is for the infant to avoid the contract or ratify it, and not within the power of a stranger — certainly not of a wrong-doer — to set up the infant’s incapacity to contract as a protection to himself. The contract, though voidable at the option of the infant, is *143valid as to third parties who are strangers to both parties to the contract, and not claiming under either.

¶2The judgment must be reversed with costs and a new trial ordered.

The other Justices concurred.
/45/mich/142 · .json · Public domain