Summary
holding that an attempted ratification of a burial contract was not binding upon an estate
Summary of this case from USH Ventures v. Global Telesystems Group, Inc.Opinion
October 4, 1951.
LAYTON, J., sitting.
Thomas Herlihy, Jr., for Plaintiff.
Henry M. Canby for Defendant.
John E. Kreggenwinkel died on June 28, 1948, leaving no estate other than certain policies of insurance of which his father, John H. Kreggenwinkel, was named beneficiary. The deceased was survived by his mother, Mrs. Winters, who had divorced Mr. Kreggenwinkel some years before and remarried, by his father, just referred to, and by one Bessie Bryan who was living with him at his death and who may have been his wife. If not, her exact relationship to deceased was not disclosed.
The father had suffered a stroke and was then in a convalescent home. He was illiterate and because of the stroke could not talk. Whether he was incompetent is a question upon which some testimony was taken at the trial, but I have decided that a decision on this point is not necessary.
Immediately upon the death of the son, deceased's mother, Mrs. Winters, Mr. Winters and Bessie Bryan went to the Funeral Home of plaintiff, Hirzel, arranged for his burial and charged the account to the father. At the time they had in their possession the policies of insurance naming the father as beneficiary. They left stating in substance that they would talk to the father at the convalescent home; that they were on friendly terms with him. Reading between the lines, it is to be surmised that Hirzel assumed that the father would be induced to pay the bill from the proceeds of the policies for he opened the burial account against John H. Kreggenwinkel. Plaintiff, Hirzel, did not know the father. In August, Hirzel sent a bill for the son's burial to the father, which was not paid. In November the father's attorney, John F. Lynn, Esquire came to the convalescent home with a document which the father signed by making his mark thereon. The instrument read as follows:
"I authorize my attorney, John F. Lynn, to pay over unto the Hirzel Funeral Homes, Inc. the sum of Nine Hundred Ninety-Three Dollars ($993.00) in full payment and satisfaction of the bill incurred in connection with the burial of my son, John E. Kreggenwinkel, the said bill to be paid from the proceeds of the following insurance policies: The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States, Certificate No. 80491578, in the amount of One Thousand Dollars ($1,000.00), the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States, Certificate No. 8049-X-1578, in the amount of Four Thousand Dollars ($4,000.00) issued on the life of my son (group insurance at the Delaware Power Light Company) and the balance of the proceeds of the said insurance policies is to be paid to my trustee, The Equitable Trust Company.
"I authorize my said attorney, John F. Lynn, to act as my agent to sign and endorse any check from the said insurance company payable to my order for the purpose of collecting the proceeds of the policies and to execute on my behalf any release or other acquittance required by said company in satisfaction of the payment of the proceeds of the policies."
This writing never came into plaintiff's possession. Mr. Lynn did not attempt to pay the funeral bill in accordance with the provisions of the instrument above recited and the father subsequently died. The Equitable Trust Company, his Executor, having refused to pay the bill, this suit was instituted.
It is claimed that the instrument signed by the father in November, 1948, created a legal obligation on his part to pay the funeral bill and on his death was a valid debt of the estate. The sole theory of recovery relied upon is that this instrument evidenced a ratification of the acts of Bessie Bryan and Mrs. Winters in ordering the funeral expenses charged to the father.
Superior Court for New Castle County, No. 536, Civil Action, 1950.
A contract made by an agent for his principal either wholly without authority or in excess of his authority may, of course, be ratified by the principal and once ratified becomes as binding as if originally made by him. But there is a well settled exception to this rule in cases where the plaintiff knew at the time of the transaction that the purported agent was not acting for the defendant.
The following quotation from Minnich v. Darling, 8 Ind. App. 539, 36 N.E. 173, 175 ( Appellate Ct. Indiana) explains the reasoning: "* * * He who ratifies and adopts a contract made in his name, although without his knowledge or authority, will be bound by it, through all of its legitimate consequences, the same as if he had authorized it in the first instance. The methods by which a contract may be ratified are as numerous and various as the methods by which a contract may be made without the intervention of an agent. There are certain well-defined rules that govern ratification. The contract ratified must be one that the parties might have lawfully made in the first instance. The person who acts as agent must purport to be the agent of the principal, and the contract must be made upon the faith and credit of the principal. `Ratification' means adoption of that which was done for and in the name of another. Hence, the contract, at its inception, must purport to be the contract of the principal. It is not sufficient to constitute ratification that the contract may have inured to the benefit of a person sought to be charged as principal." See also Note 127 A.L.R. 893, and cases cited therein.
An analysis of the evidence in the case before me compels the conclusion that Bessie Bryan and Mr. and Mrs. Winters were not representing themselves to be the agents of John H. Kreggenwinkel, the father, at the time they appeared at plaintiff's funeral home and ordered the son's burial to be charged to him. True, they designated the father as the person to whom plaintiff could look for payment and plaintiff was obviously misled into believing that the father would be induced to pay the bill. It is equally true that the father would be benefitted by the burial in the sense that the natural love, affection and sentiment of a father for his son would demand the satisfaction of a fitting funeral. But the fact still remains that at no time did either Bessie Bryan or Mr. and Mrs. Winters represent themselves as having the present authority to negotiate the contract of burial. In fact, they as much as said so by stating that they were then going to see the father; that they were on friendly terms with him. This could only mean that they had no immediate authority to act in this regard for John H. Kreggenwinkel but were hopeful that he could be persuaded to assume the financial responsibility of the funeral.
Plaintiff apparently places much stress upon the fact that one of the three then had in his possession certain policies of insurance of the deceased in which his father was named beneficiary. As I view this case, plaintiff's position would be considerably stronger if these people had come into his funeral parlor armed with the policies, ordered the funeral charged to the father and said nothing more. Under such conditions, it might well be assumed that they were acting with the father's authority. But what they said on leaving destroyed any such supposition for the clear inference from their statement was that, while they had no present authority to act, they were certain they could obtain it or, at least, a ratification of their plainly unauthorized act.
One of the conditions precedent to a valid ratification is that the principal be fully cognizant of all the material facts and circumstances relating to the unauthorized transaction of the agent. 2 C.J.S., Agency, § 42; Compare Hannigan v. Italo Petroleum Corporation, 4 Terry 333, 47 A.2d 169. From the rather strong evidence here as to the father's extremely debilitated mental and physical condition at the time, it is doubtful to my mind whether plaintiff met his burden of proving that Kreggenwinkel, Sr. could possibly have been fully aware of all the circumstances leading up to his signing the instrument purporting to ratify the charging of the funeral bill to himself. However, a decision on this point seems unnecessary in the light of the decision here reached.
In the light of what has been said, it follows that the attempted ratification by John H. Kreggenwinkel of the burial contract was not binding upon his estate.
Judgment for defendant.