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Minor Business

An Inquiry Into The Fairness And Risks Posed For Adults Doing Business With Minors

Walden University 2012

Minor Business Abstract

This paper was written in a joint effort by David Wilhite, et al, to explore and evaluate potential issues arising from minors' legal right to void contracts they enter into. This paper's theme focuses primarily on the contracts made during the course of commercial transactions between underage consumers and adult merchants. Through a thoughtful analysis, this paper concludes that the potential for minors to exploit laws designed to protect them is diminished by the justice system's conscious effort to protect individual property rights.

Minor Business An Inquiry Into The Fairness And Risks Posed For Adults Doing Business With Minors Aristotle observed that Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope. As such it seems appropriate that legal and social custom recognize the twilight period before an adolescent joins the majority as one potentially fraught with well-intended accidents and innocent missteps. Accordingly, the spirit of various statutes that allow minors to avoid or disaffirm certain agreements is to provide margin for expected errors in judgment due to a generalized naivet and lack of life experience. Still, society could scarcely restrain young persons from entering it and making their presence aware. Teenagers want to drive, go out at night with their friends, and enjoy some freedom that goes along with

being an individual. Yet being an individual in society poses a range of potential risks that someone must definitely be held accountable for, as in liability for torts. Some states, for instance, treat minors over the age of fourteen as adults in circumstances of negligence tort (Goldman & Sigismond, 2011 p. 167). Liability withstanding, everywhere that there is some material good to be had there is an adoring teenager eagerly coveting possession of the item and a very willing merchant to make it available for the right price. These transactions being made and agreements entered into can not be practically outlawed so a reasonable framework has evolved by which minors are given freedoms and leniency while ideally limiting any adverse impact they have on society at large. That framework customarily hinges on an individual's competency to enter into agreements and contracts, which is not formally acknowledged until one's eighteenth birthday. Until such a time, a limbo of sorts exists for commercial proprietors who are generally liable for the trouble caused by minor customers seeking to void a contract on basis of juvenile incompetence. It is unanimous across U.S. jurisdictions that individuals are not competent to enter into legally abiding contracts until after adulthood has been reached. However, there is still a realm of law that observes various stipulations by which underage individuals regularly enter agreements and conduct

Minor Business commercial transactions with adults. One such principle is that an agreement between a minor and an adult is voidable only by the minor (Goldman & Sigismond, 2011 p. 162). While this arrangement is situated for the protection of minors from themselves or unscrupulous adults it is not intended to be used as a weapon to consciously injure adults. Adults can choose not to enter into contracts with minors or require liable consent of a parent or legal guardian to avoid or minimize potential risk exposure. It is assumed that recouping losses from an adult is more realistic than from a minor. Otherwise, merchants and other adults doing business with minors are subject to the good will and intent of their younger

patrons. At cursory glance, the relationship may seem to unfairly disadvantage the adult entering into the agreement. But in practice the justice system is very keen to protect the property rights of productive community members and will typically locate equitable remedies to restore damaged parties whole. This is particularly so in relation to the purchase or disposition of necessaries, or items and services necessary to support a particular station in life (Goldman & Sigismond, 2011 p. 165). Agreements involving the purchase of necessaries and certain other contracts concerning insurance policies, education loans, airline tickets, or marriage can not be disaffirmed by law. So, with the potential risk exposure that merchants and adults endure to do business with minors, why do retailers continue to sell to minors or otherwise incompetent parties? Isn't it unfair that the law provides for minors to hold an explicit advantage in commercial transactions, regardless of individual proprietor's in-store policy? Well, the market does not appear to have responded appreciably to any perceived threat by organized bands of dishonest teenage customers. As one would expect, the business community is fully capable of hiring lawyers to protect itself, of lobbying for legislative measures to curb encroachments on collective property rights, and of teaching children to know better. The specter of minors getting their money back from earlier purchases on the grounds that they disaffirm the contract doesn't deserve an exaggerated level of concern. By the same token, if they are competent enough to understand their right to void contracts then they are competent enough to offset their claim to

Minor Business

refund with reasonable consideration suffered by their use of another's property. It is fair to expect minors to pay their own way in any meaningful way available. Bob Bowen, acclaimed artist and director of Family Guy, has this to say about youth: We are only young once. That is all society can stand. There is certainly truth in jest expressed with that statement. How many adults admit to making a colossally huge mistake during their teenage years that they would take back in an instant? While it is understood that minors will make unnecessary errs in judgment from time to time, there exists precedents that serve to assuage the negative impacts resulting from these mistakes. And given the fact that any minor anywhere can void practically any contract and yet our country has not descended into anarchy is telling of level of concern the public should have with this legal scenario. It would almost appear that the public at large is unaware of the fact that minors can void contracts or simply doesn't care to be bothered with concocting a legal means to exploit the law. The fact that some adults assume additional risk doing business with minors is not a matter of correctness rather than a matter of course in protecting vulnerable members in society, above all else, from themselves.

Reference

Minor Business Goldman, A., & Sigismond, W. (2007). Business law: principles and practices (7th ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

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