Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 7.djvu/633

 BBOCEHACB V. KEHMA. 621 �this can avail him against the legal consequences of the aot, •when taken in connection with the legal import and effect of the contracts by which the insurance company obligated itself to make payment. �It is claimed also that, by bringing suit on complainant's bond as guardian, Mrs. Kemna bas ratified the action taken at the time of the surrender of the old policy for the paid-up policy, and therefore should not be permitted to make her present assertion of right to the proceeds of the latter policy. Eut it seems to me that such is not the efifect of her proceed- ing, and that it is rather a disaffirmance of the agreement entered into by her during her minority by which Mrs. Brockhaus was to take the proceeds of the insurance. The assertion of her supposed right to those proceeds could only be made by demand of payment or suit for their recovery, or on the guardian's bond. And, in such case, to say that a resort to the only course dpen to her for such assertion of her alleged right operates as a ratification of that which she now disavows, seems to me equivalent to a deniai of all power to disaffirm. Of course, if it wwre a directly-alleged fact that the whole inducement for taking the paid-up policy was an actual change of beneficiary, and a transfer of interest to Franziska Brockhaus as such beneficiary, a different phase of the question might be presented ; but I do not understand such to be the meaning of the bill. �The court is not oblivious of the objects evidently in view when the family understanding was had in 1876. But I see no escape from the conclusions indicated, when the case is considered, as I think it must be, with reference to the abso- lute legal rights of the beneficiary named in the paid-up policy. �The demurrer to the bill will, therefore, be sustained. ��� �