UNIV. OF THE BUSINESS MAN'S A Hip-Pocket Business Counsellor-A Pigeon-Hole Legal COMPILED BY 27 EXPERTS Who have worried about as you have worried about-worked over as you have worked over- -solved as you want to solve the vexatious business questions and legal points these two little volumes so readily answer THE SYSTEM COMPANY CHICAGO UNIV. OF CALIFORNIA The Business Man's Encyclopedia BOOK I BUSINESS LAW An eminent lawyer has said that it is astonishing within how small a space all the principles of commercial law can be compacted. These laws are generally clear and non-technical, being the actual practice of the business community, expressed in rules and maxims, and invested with the authority of law. CONTRACTS The most important subject embraced in the division, "Commercial Law," is that of Contracts, nearly every act common to business being some form or modification of a contract. A contract is a deliberate agreement between competent persons upon a legal consideration, to do or abstain from doing a particular thing. Competency and Incompetency. The common rule is that any person of legal age and of a sane mind may enter into a binding contract if he does so voluntarily and freely. Common law and most statute laws fix a person's age at 21, but in a few of the states a female becomes of age at 18 or when married. Of the many conditions of incompetency or disability rendering persons incapable of making binding contracts, the following are the ones generally accepted: (1) Minority; (2) insanity; (3) idiocy; (4) alien belligerency; (5) duress; (6) drunkenness to an extent that the ordinary faculties are not in operation. |