Nathan Clifford

“ Imbecility of mind is not of itself sufficient to set aside a contract, when there is not an essential privation of the reasoning faculties or an incapacity of understanding and acting with discretion in the ordinary affairs of life. ”

“ Modern text-writers treat of contracts with intoxicated persons under a distinct head; and Addison says, that a party who makes a contract in such a state of intoxication as not to know what he is doing, cannot be compelled to perform the contract by the other party who knew him to be in that state, and that a man who takes an obligation from another so circumstanced is guilty of actual fraud. ”

“ Men of such understanding are held responsible for criminal acts, and they may make valid contracts; but when it appears that a contractor or grantor has not strength of mind and reason sufficient to understand the nature and consequences of his act in making a contract or in executing a deed, the instrument may be avoided, on the ground of the mental incapacity of the party to contract or to execute the conveyance. ”

“ Weakness of understanding may be a material circumstance in every case where the charge is that one of the contracting parties has taken undue advantage of the other, or has een guilty of unfair practice or imposition. Formerly, it was considered that intoxication was no excuse for the non-fulfilment of a pecuniary liability, and that it constituted no sufficient plea in avoidance of a contract ”

“ In regard to drunkenness, says Greenleaf, it is now settled that incapacity from that cause is a valid defence to an action upon the contract made while under its influence, as well where it was voluntary and by the fault of the defendant as where it was caused by the fraud or procurement of the plaintiff. ”

“ Both minds must meet in such a transaction; and if one is so weak, unsound, and diseased that the party is incapable of understanding the nature and quality of the act to be performed, or its consequences, he is incompetent to assent to the terms a d conditions of the instrument, whether that state of his mind was produced by mental or physical disease, and whether it resulted from ordinary sickness, or from accident, or from debauchery, or from habitual and protracted intemperance. ”

“ Those matters being adjusted, the parties went to trial upon the feigned issue in the court of law, and the jury found that the complainant at the time he signed the deed of trust and notes was not capable of executing a valid deed or contract. Exceptions were filed by the respondent as in a common-law action, in which is given what purports to be the testimony introduced in the trial of the issue. ”