Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/378

 364 FEDERAL REPORTER. �As respects the alleged ' subsequent agreement to release the tug, it is positively denied by the agent of the underwriters, who is claimed to have made it on their behalf. The evidence in favor of it consista of very loose and uncertain testimony of conversations. It is grossly improbable, under the circumstances shown to have existed at the time, and there is no sufficient proof of the authority of the agent to bind the underwriters by the alleged agreement. The proof is insuf- ficient to establish it. �Objection is made by the claimant that the libellant cannot main- tain this action because there is no proof of a total loss, and an abandonment, or of an assignment of the claim by the insured. Whatever difficulty there might be in a common-law suit, I think it is now settled that an insurer may, in the admiralty, maintain such an action for damages against the oflfending vessel in his own name after payment of the loss. The insurer in such a case is the party really entitled to the damages, and as such the party in whose name action should more properly be brought. The Monticello, 17 Ho-w. 162: Frely v. Bull, 12 Hovr. 468. See, also, Hall y. Rail- roaa. Co. 13 Wall. 367; Memphis Ins. Go. v. Garrison, 19 How. 312. �At the close of the case objection was made that sufiScient evidence of interest in the assured had not been shown. It appeared, how- ever, that the policy was taken out by the firm of Warfords, Eobin- son & Hinman, for the benefit of whom it may concern, and that the barge was used in their business, and was one of a large number of barges run by them ; that she belonged partly to one of the members of the firm, Hinman, who had possession of the policy at the time of the disaster, and that they were accustomed to insure the barges used in their line. �Wbile the evidence of authority to insure for the owners is cer- tainly very slight, beyond the interest of Hinman, yet I think this question is not fairly raised by the answer, which, in adraitting the fact that the libellant was the underwriter on the hull of the barge, has, I think, admitted that the policy was valid. �Decree for libellant, with costs. ��� �