Английский язык для юристов. Предпринимательское право - стр. 22

Goods and services that are essential to a minor's health and welfare are necessaries. Necessaries include food, clothing, shelter, and medical and dental services. In determining whether goods and services qualify as necessaries, the court inquires into the minor's family status, financial strength, and social standing or station in life. A minor's contract covering only the fair value of necessaries is enforceable against the minor.

An individual may disaffirm an agreement made during minority before or within a reasonable time after reaching adulthood. Failure to disaffirm within a reasonable period of time after reaching adulthood would imply that the contract had been ratified. The method of disaffirmance is fundamentally the same as that of ratification. Disaffirmance may be implied by the acts of the individual after achieving majority, as by a failure to make an installment payment.

Ratification, or affirmance, the willingness to abide by contractual obligations, may be implied by using the item purchased, making an installment payment, paying off the balance of money owed on a previously voidable contract, or continuing to accept goods and services provided under a contract after becoming of full age. Affirmation may also result from the person's oral or written declaration to abide by the contract. These and other acts ratify an existing agreement and elevate it to the status of one that is enforceable against an adult.

Individuals who buy something from a minor have voidable ownership rights because the minor has the right to disaffirm the contract. The law permits a person having voidable ownership rights to transfer valid ownership rights to an innocent third-party purchaser of those goods. Thus, disaffirmance by a minor will not require the innocent purchaser to return the goods (real estate is an exception).

Persons deprived of the mental ability to comprehend and understand contractual obligations have the right to disaffirm their contracts.

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