Question

Principle: An agreement with a boy below the age of eighteen years is not enforceable by law.
Facts: A man entered into an agreement with a girl of seventeen years of age.
This question consists of legal principle(s) (hereinafter referred to as ‘principle’) and facts. Such proposition may or may not be true in the real and legal sense, yet you have to conclusively assume them to be true for the purposes of this section. Principles have to be applied to the given facts to arrive at the most reasonable conclusion. Only one of the alternatives, i.e., (A), (B), (C), or (D) is the most reasonable conclusion. In other words, in answering the following questions, you must not rely on any principle except the principles that are given herein below for every question. Further you must not assume any facts other than those stated in the question. The objective of this section is to test your ability in legal aptitude, study of law, research aptitude and problem solving ability even if the 'most reasonable conclusion‘ arrived at may be absurd or unacceptable for any other reason.

• A. The agreement is enforceable by law.
• B. The agreement is not enforceable by law.
• C. The agreement is enforceable by the girl.
• D. No inference can be drawn.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is D

The correct option is (D): No inference can be drawn..

Answer 2

The principle given only talks about an agreement with a "boy" below eighteen years of age being unenforceable. The facts describe an agreement with a "girl" who is seventeen. Since the principle strictly refers to a boy and the facts describe a girl, we need to check whether the principle can be applied here at all.

1. The agreement is enforceable by law: This would follow only if we could confidently say the principle does not apply here and no other rule makes it unenforceable, but since the principle is written for boys and the facts describe a girl, we cannot use the principle to declare it enforceable either.
2. The agreement is not enforceable by law: This would only follow if the principle covered girls as well as boys, but the principle as worded is limited strictly to a "boy" below eighteen, so this conclusion goes beyond what the principle actually states.
3. The agreement is enforceable by the girl: Nothing in the principle carves out a special enforcement right for one party over the other, and since the principle does not even cover girls, this conclusion cannot be drawn from it.
4. No inference can be drawn: Because the principle specifically addresses agreements with a boy below eighteen, and the facts involve a girl, the principle simply does not speak to this situation. We are told not to assume facts beyond what is given, so we cannot stretch the principle to cover a girl. This means no conclusion can be reasonably drawn.

Since the principle is worded specifically for a "boy" and the facts describe a "girl," the principle cannot be applied to reach either an enforceable or unenforceable conclusion.

Therefore, the correct answer is No inference can be drawn.

Answer 3

The principle can be read as a conditional rule: if a person is a boy below eighteen years of age, then an agreement with that person is not enforceable by law. The rule is written narrowly around one specific category of person, a boy under eighteen. Here the facts describe an agreement with a girl of seventeen, so before reaching any conclusion we need to check whether the facts actually satisfy the condition the rule is built around.

1. The agreement is enforceable by law: Reaching this conclusion would need some rule that affirmatively makes agreements with a seventeen-year-old girl enforceable, but no such rule has been given, only a rule about a boy under eighteen, so this cannot be concluded from the condition available.
2. The agreement is not enforceable by law: This conclusion only follows once the rule's condition is met, meaning the other party would need to be a boy below eighteen. The facts describe a girl, not a boy, so the condition is not satisfied and this specific rule cannot be used to reach unenforceability.
3. The agreement is enforceable by the girl: No condition in the rule creates a one-sided enforcement right belonging only to one party, and since the rule's condition (a boy under eighteen) is not even met here, there is nothing to build this special conclusion on.
4. No inference can be drawn: Since the rule's condition specifically requires a boy below eighteen, and the facts instead describe a girl of seventeen, the condition simply is not satisfied, and the rule tells us nothing about what happens when its condition fails. With no other rule given, neither enforceability nor unenforceability can be concluded.

Because the given rule's condition is limited to a boy under eighteen and the facts involve a girl instead, the condition needed to trigger the rule is never met, leaving no basis for any conclusion either way.

Therefore, the correct answer is No inference can be drawn.