156 



FEAUDULENT CONTEACTS. 



"Where a con- 

 tracting party- 

 is old and 

 weak-minded. 



Drunkenness 

 of a contract- 

 ing party. 



Goods kept by 

 a party when 

 sober. 



will lie against her husband or herself for the breach of it. 

 But she is undoubtedly responsible for all torts committed 

 by her on any person, as for any other personal wrongs. 

 But when the fraud is directly connected with the 

 contract with the wife, and is the means of effecting it, and 

 parcel of the same transaction, the wife cannot be respon- 

 sible, and the husband be sued for it together with the 

 wife " (A). As regards the liability of the wife, however, 

 this case is no longer the law, as a married woman can now 

 render herself responsible on her contracts, and therefore 

 liable on any tort arising out of them (»'). 



Equity will give relief where there is no reasonable 

 equality between the contracting parties, e.g., in a case in 

 which the vendor, being an aged, illiterate, weak-minded 

 man, though not a person absolutely incapable of man- 

 aging his own affairs, executed a deed of conveyance of his 

 property for a grossly inadequate consideration (k). 



Where a party, when he enters into a contract, is in 

 such a state of drunkenness as not to know what he is 

 doing, and particularly when it appears that this was 

 known to the other party, he cannot be compelled to per- 

 form the contract (I). 



If, however, a man buys a horse when so drunk as not 

 to know what he is doing, but keeps it after he is sober, he 

 cannot set up his drunkenness as an answer to an action 

 for the price {m). 



(h) See note (g), ante. 



(() EYCrsleyonDomestic Relations, 

 p. 297. See also a. 1, sub-s. (2) of 

 the Married Women's Property Act, 

 1882. 



ih) Longmate v. Ledger, 6 Jur., 



N. S. 481. 



(I) Gore y. Gibson, 13 M. & W. 

 626. 



(m) Gore t. Gilmn, 13 M. & W. 

 626. 



