by John Marshall Harlan

“ St. 229, when he said that 'public policy requires no more than that a man be not suffered to insure against his own knavery, which is not to be protected or encouraged by any means; for though the maxim respondeat superior is applicable to the responsibility of a master for the acts of his servants, yet the insured, so long as he acts with fidelity, is answerable neither for his servants nor for himself.' Williams v. Insurance Co., 3 Sum. ”

“ The contract provided as a condition precedent to the right to abandon that it be 'ascertained that the recovery and repairs of said vessel are impracticable.' But in what mode ascertained? How was the insured to determine whether the recovery and repair of the vessel was impracticable at the time of abandonment? Why, manifestly, as the jury were told, by taking into consideration where the vessel lay, the uncertainty as to when (if at all) a rise would come to float her off, and all the other attendant circumstances. While the damage must at the time have been equivalent to 50 per cent. ”

“ Insurance Co., 4 Cranch, 29; Marshall v. Insurance Co., Id., 202. Again: 'In many cases of stranding, the state of the vessel at the time may be such, from the imminency of the peril, and the apparent extent of expenditures required to deliver her from it, as to justify an abandonment; although by some fortunate occurrence she may be delivered from her peril without an actual expenditure of one-half of her value after she is in safety. ”