Apartments ‘r’ Us v. Ariana, Kesha, Jeremih, and Zayn
Apartments ‘r’ Us is suing four college students Ariana, Kesha, Jeremih, and Zayn who purchased goods from their store and then tried to return the destroyed goods for a full refund. The following case is an example of four young college students making a mistake out of inexperience and youth. I will be defending the four students and showing why they should be able to rescind their contracts.
Ariana (defendant) is 19 and purchased a sofa and framed print from Apartments ‘r’ Us (plaintiff) with cash for $1400. She notified the plaintiffs that she wanted to disaffirm the contract which was voidable at her discretion because she is considered an infant under the law of Hollis. The legal …show more content…
The students in this case didn’t set out to attack or take advantage of the store when they signed the contract. Infancy is supposed to protect minors from their own inexperience and lack of knowledge. In this case the minors made a mistake out of inexperience, not out of malice towards the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs might also argue that the minors, Jeremih and Kesha, committed fraudulent misrepresentation by signing the contract for the credit card that had a line that read “The signatory to this agreement with Apartments ‘r’ Us hereby states, warrants and affirms that he/she is of legal age to enter into a binding contract, and in any case is not under 21 years of age.” By alleging fraud the plaintiffs would have to prove it by clear and convincing evidence which is a higher burden of proof than the usual preponderance of the evidence. They must prove that a statement that was untrue was made and that the damaged party relied on that fact and was injured or damaged because of that reliance. They must also prove that the defendants signed the contract with scienter which is an intent to deceive. There is no evidence that the defendants intended to defraud the plaintiffs. They had been drinking before they purchased the goods and signed the contracts for the credit card. While they were …show more content…
They will base this off of the decision in Dodson v. Shrader. In Dodson v. Shrader the adults were only required to give back the amount that truck was worth at the time of disaffirmance. “The other minority rule holds that the minor's recovery of the full purchase price is subject to a deduction for the minor's "use" of the consideration he or she received under the contract, or for the "depreciation" or "deterioration" of the consideration in his or her possession” . In that case the amount returned was the value at the time of disaffirmance which occurred before the truck was totaled. The truck was totaled after the disaffirmance of the contract which meant that the truck belonged to the dealers. The dealers were not required to pay for the depreciation that happened while it was legally their possession. In the case at hand, the goods were damaged and devalued before the contract was disaffirmed, thus the plaintiffs should have to pay the full contracted value of the