Court case[1908] 2 KB 1

Nash, a Savile Row tailor, supplied clothing worth about 145 pounds, including eleven fancy waistcoats, to Inman, a Cambridge undergraduate who was a minor. Nash sued for the price. Inman's father, an architect, gave evidence that his son was already amply supplied with clothes suitable to his position. No evidence was led to contradict this.

The Court of Appeal held for the minor. Necessaries are goods suitable to the condition in life of the minor and to his actual requirements at the time of sale and delivery. The burden is on the supplier to prove both limbs; since the minor was already sufficiently supplied, the waistcoats were not necessaries. Fletcher Moulton LJ explained that the minor's liability for necessaries arises not from his contract but from an obligation imposed by law, which is why the supplier is paid only a reasonable price.