(A) A taking on of the legal rights of someone whose debts or expenses have been paid. For example, subrogation occurs when an insurance company that has paid off its injured claimant takes the legal rights the claimant has against a third party that caused the injury, and sues that third party. (B) civil law, contracts. The act of putting by a transfer, a person in the place of another, or a thing in the place of another thing. It is the substitution of a new for an old creditor, and the succession to his rights, which is called subrogation; transfusio unius creditoris in alium. It is precisely the reverse of delegation. 2. There are three kinds of subrogation: 1. That made by the owner of a thing of his own free will; example, when be voluntarily assigns it. 2. That which arises in consequence of the law, even without the consent of the owner; example, when a man pays a debt which could not be properly called his own, but which nevertheless it was his interest to pay, or which he might have been compelled to pay for another, the law subrogates him to all the rights of the creditor. 3. That which arises by the act of law joined to the act of the debtor; as, when the debtor borrows money expressly to pay off his debt, and with the intention of substituting the lender in the place of the old creditor.
Law Dictionary – Alternative Legal Definition
The substitution of one thing for another, or of one person into the place of another with respect to rights, claims, or securities. Subrogation denotes the putting a third person who has paid a debt in the place, of the creditor to whom he has paid it so. as that he may exercise against the debtor all the rights which the creditor, if unpaid, might have done. Brown. The equity by which a person who is secondarily liable for a debt, and has paid it, is put in the place of the creditor, so as to entitle him to make use of all the securities and remedies possessed by the creditor, in order to enforce the right of exoneration as against the principal debtor, or of contribution against others who are liable in the same rank as himself. Subrogation is of two kinds, either conventional or legal; the former being where the subrogation is express, by the acts of the creditor and the third person; the latter being (as In the case of sureties) where the subrogation is effected or implied by the operation of the law.