RATIFICATION IN INSURANCE LAW determine in what instances one may ratify and when one may not.1 One of the earliest decisions as to ratifica tion in insurance law is the well-known case of Hagedorn v. Oliverson.2 There the plaintiff took out a policy of insurance "as well in his own name as for and in the name of all and every other person and persons to whom the same doth, may, or shall apper tain, etc. " One Schroeder, was the person interested in the property at the time of the fire, and he does not appear to have authorized or known of the insurance until after the loss, but the court held that he could recover for his loss, the action of course being brought in the name of the assured as trustee for Schroeder, the real beneficiary. But it should be carefully noted that here there was a completed con tract between the insurance company and the person who had obtained the insurance in his own name and paid the premium, although, to be sure, it was largely, if not wholly, for the benefit of the undisclosed owner of the property. Le Blanc, J., in his opinion, said: "This, it must be remem bered, is a question between the plaintiff and the underwriter, and not Schroeder and the underwriter, and unless we saw that the underwriter would not have been entitled to retain the premium, we cannot say that the plaintiff is not entitled to his contract, unless it could be shown that this is a mere gaming policy." Thus the basis of the de cision is that there was an actual contract in existence before the loss, and the only difficulty arising after the loss was as to who could enforce it. Under such circumstances the only real question is between the person who took out the policy and the one who claims to be the beneficiary for whom the 1 On the subject of ratification generally see Professor Wambaugh's article in the Harvard Law Review, Vol. IX, p. 60 et seq. It is not the purpose of the present article to take up the manyconflicting views as to ratification generally, or indeed to do any more than consider ratification as applied to a single problem in insurance law. » a M. & S. 485.
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insurance was effected, and, of course, as between those two, the beneficiary should be allowed after loss, as well as before, to elect to take advantage of the insurance which the other obtained for him. Precisely like the case of Hagedorn v. Oliverson are all of the other and later insur ance decisions that are usually cited as the principal authorities for the general rule that even after loss an assured may in any case ratify the unauthorized act of his broker or agent in obtaining for him a policy of in surance.1 For in each of those cases the person effecting the insurance was part owner or bailee and took it in his own name, and thus at once made a complete contract — although in each case it was for the bene fit of an unnamed beneficiary, who later took advantage of it by a so-called ratifica tion after loss. It must be obvious, there fore, that upon these authorities alone the rule will have to be stated less broadly, and may well be worded thus: "Where a part owner of property, or a commission agent having it in charge, or any other person having an interest in the property, effects insurance in his own name for the benefit of himself and all others concerned, the lat ter may even after loss ratify such act and elect to take advantage of the insurance." This seems to be as far as any of the deci sions go in permitting ratification in these cases, although it must be admitted that the language in some of the opinions is broader. For example, in Larsen v. Thuringia American Ins. Co.,J the Supreme Court of Illinois in a fire insurance case, said, "The general rule seems to be, that one may ratify that which is done by another if he could have done the same thing in the first in stance." In that case the assured 's broker or agent after exhausting his authority by 1 Waring v. Indemnity Fire Ins. Co., 45 N. Y. 606; Stillwell v. Staples, 19 N. Y. 401; Marts v. Cumberland Ins. Co. • 15 Vroom (N. J.) 478; Southern Cold Storage Co. v. A. F. Dachman & Co., (Texas, 1903) 73 S. W. 545. (1904) 208 Ill. 166.
