(A) contracts. In the French law, the act by which a debtor surrenders his property for the benefit of his creditors. (B) contracts. In insurances the act by which the insured relinquishes to the assurer all the property to the thing insured. 2. No particular form is required for an abandonment, nor need it be in writing; but it must be explicit and absolute, and must set forth the reasons upon which it is founded. 3. It must also be made in reasonable time after the loss. 4. It is not in every case of loss that the insured can abandon. In the following cases an abandonment may be made: when there is a total loss; when the voyage is lost or not worth pursuing, by reason of a peril insured against or if the cargo be so damaged as to be of little or no value; or where the salvage is very high, and further expense be necessary, and the insurer will not engage to bear it or if what is saved is of less value than the freight; or where the damage exceeds one half of the value of the goods insured or where the property is captured, or even detained by an indefinite embargo ; and in cases of a like nature. 5. The abandonment, when legally made transfers from the insured to the insurer the property in the thing insured, and obliges him to pay to the insured what he promised him by the contract of insurance. (C) In maritime contracts in the civil law, principals are generally held indefinitely responsible for the obligations which their agents have contracted relative to the concern of their commission but with regard to ship owners there is remarkable peculiarity; they are bound by the contract of the master only to the amount of their interest in the ship, and can be discharged from their responsibility by abandoning the ship and freight. (D) lights. The relinquishment of a right; the giving up of something to which we are entitled. 2. Legal rights, when once vested, must be divested according to law, but equitable rights may be abandoned. 3. The abandonment must be made by the owner without being pressed by any duty, necessity or utility to himself, but simply because he wishes no longer to possess the thing; and further it must be made without any desire that any other person shall acquire the same; for if it were made for a consideration, it would be a sale or barter, and if without consideration, but with an intention that some other person should become the possessor, it would be a gift: and it would still be a gift though the owner might be indifferent as to whom the right should be transferred; for example, he threw money among a crowd with intent that some one should acquire the title to it. (E) for torts, a term used in the civil law. By the Roman law, when the master was sued for the tort of his slave, or the owner for a trespass committed by his animal, he might abandon them to the person injured, and thereby save himself from further responsibility.
Law Dictionary – Alternative Legal Definition
The surrender, relinquishment, disclaimer, or cession of property or of rights. Stephens v. Mansfield, 11 Cal. 363; Dikes v. Miller, 24 Tex. 417; Middle Creek Ditch Co. v. Henry, 15 Mont. 558, 39 Pac. 1054. The giving up a thing absolutely, without reference to any particular person or purpose, as throwing a jewel into the highway; leaving a thing to itself, as a vessel at sea; vacating property with the intention of not returning, so that it may be appropriated by the next comer. 2 Bl. Comm. 9, 10; Pidge v. Pidge, 3 Mete. (Mass) 265; Breedlove v. Stump, 3 Yerg. (Tenn.) 257, 276; Richardson v. McNulty, 24 Cal. 339, 345; Judson v. Mal loy, 40 Cal. 299, 310. To constitute abandonment there must concur an intention to forsake or relinquish the thing in question and some external act by which that intention is manifested or carried into effect. Mere nonuser is not abandonment unless coupled with an intention not to resume or reclaim the use or possession. Sikes v. State (Tex Cr. App.) 28 S. W. 688; Barnett v. Dickinson, 93 Md. 258, 48 Atl. 838; Wflsh v. Taylor, 134 N. Y. 450, 31 N. E. 896, 18 D. R. A. 535. In marine insurance A relinquishment or cession of property by the owner to the insurer of it, in order to claim as for a total loss, when in fact it is so. by construction only. 2 Steph. Coinm. 178. The exercise of a right which a party having insured goods or vessels has to call upon the insurers, in cases where the property insured has, by perils of the sea, become so much damaged as to be of little value, to accept of what is or may be saved, and to pay the full amount of the insurance, as if a total loss had actually happened. Park, Ins. 143; 2 Marsh. Ins. 559; 3 Kent, Comm. 318 335, and notes; The St. Johns (D. C.) 101 Fed. 469; Roux v. Salvador, 3 Bing. N. C. 206, 284; Mellish v. Andrews, 15 East, 13; Cincinnati Ins. Co. v. Duffield, 6 Ohio St 200, 67 Am. Dec. 339. est In the thing insured. Civil Code CaL