⚡ 10-Second Rule
Kids, and adults whose minds could not follow the deal, can usually cancel their contracts.
🧒 ELI-10 Scene
Nine-year-old Lily trades her nearly new bike to a neighbor kid for a stack of stickers. That evening her dad walks over and undoes the trade. Nobody argues. Everyone understands the unwritten rule: little kids' trades don't stick. Grown-ups can hold Lily to one thing only — if someone fed her lunch when she was hungry, that person deserves fair payment. But a sticker trade? Lily gets her bike back. The law runs the same playground rule.
⚖️ Actual Rule
A minor's contract is voidable at the minor's option, not the adult's. Under the Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 14 (paraphrased), a person can incur only voidable contractual duties until the day before their eighteenth birthday. The minor may disaffirm during minority or within a reasonable time after reaching majority; under the majority rule, the minor need only return whatever remains of what was received, even if damaged or depreciated. For necessaries — food, shelter, clothing, medical care suited to the minor's station and not supplied by a parent — the minor still may disaffirm the contract but is liable in restitution for the reasonable value received, not the contract price. After reaching majority, the former minor may ratify — expressly, by conduct, or by retaining and using the benefits for more than a reasonable time — and ratification kills the power to disaffirm. For mental incapacity, Restatement § 15 (paraphrased) makes a contract voidable if the person could not understand the nature and consequences of the transaction (the cognitive test), or could not act reasonably as to the transaction and the other party had reason to know it (the volitional test). Contracts of a person already adjudicated incompetent and under guardianship are void, not merely voidable. Under Restatement § 16 (paraphrased), intoxication makes a contract voidable only if the other party had reason to know the intoxication prevented the drinker from understanding the deal or acting reasonably.
ELI-10 translation: the protected person holds the cancel button, but fair payback is owed for true needs.
🔍 Ask These Questions
- Was one party under eighteen when the deal was made? (Was a kid signing a grown-up deal?)
- If yes, has the minor disaffirmed during minority or soon after turning eighteen? (Did the kid press the cancel button in time?)
- Did the minor instead ratify after majority — by words, conduct, or keeping the goods? (Did the grown-up version of the kid keep acting like the deal was on?)
- Was the contract for necessaries — food, shelter, clothing, medical care? (Was it something the kid truly needed to live?)
- If necessaries, measure recovery by reasonable value, not the contract price. (The seller gets a fair amount, not the sticker price.)
- For adults, apply the cognitive or volitional test — or, for intoxication, ask what the sober party knew. (Could the person's mind follow the deal, and could the other side tell?)
⚠️ Bar Trap
Exam language: When a minor contracts for necessaries, examiners tempt you with two extremes — full enforcement of the contract as written, or zero liability. Both are wrong: the minor may still disaffirm the contract, but owes quasi-contractual restitution measured by the reasonable value of what was actually received.
ELI-10: A kid who buys real needs cannot walk away free, and cannot be nailed to the sticker price either. The kid pays what the needs were fairly worth. Nothing more, nothing less.
🧪 Question
A seventeen-year-old whose parents had refused to house or support him rented a furnished room from a landlord under a signed twelve-month lease at $900 per month, a rate consistent with similar rooms in the area. He occupied the room for three months, paying rent for the first two, then moved out and notified the landlord he was disaffirming the lease. The landlord sued him for the nine months of rent remaining on the lease term.
How much is the landlord entitled to recover?
(A) The full nine months of remaining rent, because housing is a necessary and the lease is therefore fully enforceable. (B) The reasonable rental value of the three months of occupancy, less the two months already paid. (C) Nothing, because contracts entered into by minors are void. (D) The full nine months of remaining rent, because the minor ratified the lease by paying two months of rent.
Answer: (B). Shelter for a minor not supported by his parents is a necessary, so the minor cannot escape all liability — but liability sounds in restitution for the reasonable value of the benefit actually received, here three months' occupancy, with credit for payments made. The disaffirmed lease itself cannot be enforced for months never occupied.
💡 Why the Wrong Answers Are Wrong
- (A) enforces the contract itself; the necessaries doctrine substitutes restitution for reasonable value, and no benefit was received for the unexpired months.
- (C) confuses voidable with void — a minor's contract exists until disaffirmed, and necessaries still generate restitutionary liability.
- (D) finds ratification during minority; ratification is possible only after reaching the age of majority.
- ELI-10: The misconception is treating the kid's deal as all-or-nothing. The real answer sits in the middle: cancel the paper, pay fair value for what was used.
