RATIFICATION. An agreement to adopt an act performed by another for us.
Express ratifications are those made in ex press and direct terms of assent. Implied ratifications are such as the law presumes from the acts of the principal ; as, if Peter buy goods for James, and the latter, knowing the fact, receive them and apply them to his own use.
2. By ratifying a contract a man adopts the agency altogether, as well what is detri mental as that which is for his benefit. 2 Strange, 859 ; 1 Atk. Ch. 128; 4 Term, 211 ; 7 East, 164 ; 16 Mart. La. 105 ; 1 Ves. Ch. 509 ; Smith, Mere. Law, 60; Story, Ag. 250; 9 Barnew. & C. 59.
As a general rule, the principal has the right to elect whether he will adopt the un authorized act or not. But having once rati fied the act, upon a full knowledge of all the material circumstances, the ratification cannot be revoked or recalled, and the principal be comes bound as if he had originally author ized the act. Story, Ag. 4 250; Paley, Ag. Lloyd ed. 171 ; 3 Chitty, Com. Law, 197.
3. The ratification of a, lawful contract has a retrospective effect, and binds the prin cipal from its date, and not only from the time of the ratification, for the ratification is equivalent to an original authority, according to the maxim that omnis ratihabitio 2nandate cequiparatur. Pothier, Obl. n. 75 ; 2 Ld. Raym. 930 ; Comb. 450 ; 5 Burr. 2727 ; 2 H. Blackst. 623; 1 Bos. & P. 316 ; 13 Johns. N. Y. 367 , 2 Johns. Cas. N. Y. 424 ; 2 Mass. 106.
Such ratification will, in general, relieve the agent from all responsibility on the contract, when be would otherwise have been liable. 2 Brod. & B. 452. See 16
Mass. 461 ; 8 Wend. N. Y. 494 ; 10 id. 399 ; Story, Ag. 4 251. See ASSENT ; Ayliffe, Pand. *386 ; 18 Viner, Abr. 156 ; 1 Liver more, Ag. c. 2, 4, pp. 44, 47 ; Story, Ag. 4 239 ; 3 Chitty, Com. Law, 197 ; Paley, Ag. Lloyd ed. 324 ; Smith, Mere. Law, 47, 60 ; 2 Johns. Cas. N. Y. 424 ; 13 Mass. 178, 391, 379; 6 Pick. Mass. 198 ; 1 Brown, Ch. 101, note ; 1 Pet. C. C. 72 ; Bouvier, Inst. Index.
4. An infant is not, in general, liable on his contracts ; but if, after coming of age, he ratify the contract by an actual or express declaration, he will be bound to perform it, as if it had been made after he attained full age. The ratification must be voluntary, deliberate, and intelligent, and the party must know that without it he would not be bound. 11 Serg. & R. Penn. 305, 311 ; 3 Penn. St. 428. See 12 Conn. 551, 556 ; 10 Mass. 137, 140 ; 14 id. 457 ; 4 Wend. N. Y. 403, 405. But a confirmation or ratification of a contract may be implied from acts of the infant after he becomes of age, as, by enjoying or claiming a benefit under a con tract he might have wholly rescinded, 1 Pick. Mass. 221, 223 ; and an infant partner will be liable for the contracts of the firm, or at least such as were known to him, if he, after becoming of age, confirm the contract of partnership by transacting business of the firtn, receiving profits, and the like. 2 Hill. So. C. 479; 1 J. B. Moore, 289.