Soper v. President & Fellows of Harvard College
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
This was a writ of error brought to reverse the judgment of the Circuit Court of Common Pleas in an action carried there by appeal from a judgment rendered by David Townsend, a justice of the peace, in which the President, &c. were original plaintiffs, and Soper original defendant.
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This was a writ of error brought to reverse the judgment of the Circuit Court of Common Pleas in an action carried there by appeal from a judgment rendered by David Townsend, a justice of the peace, in which the President, &c. were original plaintiffs, and Soper original defendant. The action was brought upon St. 1819, c. 37, the first sec tian of which provides, that no livery stable keeper “ shall give credit to any undergraduate of either of the colleges within this Commonwealth, without the consent of such officer or officers of the said colleges respectively as may be authorized to act…
1Per curiam
The Court entertain no doubt of the constitutionality of the law on which this action is founded. The object of it is clearly within legislative sanction, being relative to the discipline of public seminaries of learning. The common law renders void any promise made by an infant, the consideration of which is not for necessaries ; but people will nevertheless give credit to them, and minister to their pleasures and dissipation, relying upon the honor of ingenuous young men to discharge debts so incurred. Thus the wholesome intention of the common law is evaded, and youth are exposed *184to…
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