Contract Law

Nash v. Inman

[1908] 2 KB 1

Facts

Nash was a tailor who supplied clothing to Inman, an undergraduate student at Cambridge University.
Inman was a minor when the clothes were supplied.
The clothes included several fashionable waistcoats and other garments.
Inman did not pay for them.
Nash sued for the price, arguing that the clothes were “necessaries” suitable for Inman’s social position.
Evidence showed that Inman’s father already provided him with adequate clothing.
At the time Nash supplied the garments, Inman was already sufficiently supplied with clothes.
Nash had not made proper inquiries into whether the minor actually needed the additional garments.

A minor is generally not bound by an ordinary contract.
However, the law permits recovery for necessaries supplied to a minor.
Necessaries are goods:
suitable to the minor’s condition in life; and
actually required by the minor at the time of sale and delivery.
It is not enough that the goods belong to a generally useful category.
The supplier must prove that the minor was not already adequately supplied.
Under Indian law, the comparable principle appears in Section 68 of the Contract Act:
reimbursement may be claimed from the minor’s property;
the minor does not incur personal contractual liability.

The Court accepted that clothing is capable of being a necessary.
It also accepted that the nature and quality of clothing may be judged according to the minor’s social and economic position.
Therefore, fashionable clothing was not automatically excluded merely because it was expensive.
But the inquiry did not end there.
The tailor had to prove actual necessity at the time of supply.
Evidence showed that Inman already possessed an adequate wardrobe supplied by his father.
The additional waistcoats were therefore not needed for his maintenance, education or ordinary social life.
They were merely additional or luxurious purchases.
The supplier bore the burden of proving necessity.
Nash could not recover merely because he did not know that the minor was already well supplied.
A trader dealing with a minor does so at risk and must investigate whether the goods are genuinely required.
The Court distinguished between:
goods that are suitable in kind; and
goods that are actually necessary in the particular circumstances.
Both requirements must be satisfied.
Since Inman already had sufficient clothes, the second requirement failed.
The agreement could not be enforced as an ordinary sales contract because Inman lacked contractual capacity.
Nor could Nash recover under the exceptional doctrine of necessaries.

The Court held that Nash could not recover the price.
Although clothing may generally qualify as necessary, these particular clothes were not actually required because Inman was already adequately supplied.
Use this case for: necessaries must be both suitable to the minor’s status and actually required at the time of supply.