The Contractual Capacity of Minors in English and French Law of Employment

THE contractual liability of minors and, more generally, the capacity of minors to act legally on their own, is presently under scrutiny in both continental and common law systems. The reasons for this sudden interest in what not long ago was scarcely a controversial area, should be evident: the new freedom accorded to minors, their growing purchasing power, and generally, their increasingly important participation in almost every aspect of contemporary life. To all this, our legal systems respond with a set of provisions which are quite often obsolete and in need of reform. Without attempting to be comprehensive, it is intended to examine in this paper some of the points involved in, and the problems presented by, the legal solutions to the contractual liability of minors, and in particular that of agreements of service, in both the common and the civil law systems, as exemplified, unless otherwise indicated, by the law of England and the law of France.