Short answer. Yes. When you acted to prevent an imminent and manifest loss to the business, the owner is still obliged to reimburse your necessary and useful expenses and compensate you for any harm you suffered — even if no benefit resulted and the owner never ratified what you did.
What the law says
The same obligation shall be incumbent upon him when the management had for its purpose the prevention of an imminent and manifest loss, although no benefit may have been derived.
Civil Code, Article 2150 — Owner's Liability Despite No Ratification. Read the full provision →
Two situations where the owner must pay even without ratification
Article 2150 of the Civil Code creates two distinct grounds for reimbursement. The first is where the owner enjoys the advantages of what the officious manager did, even if those advantages were never expressly ratified. The second — which applies directly to your situation — is that the same obligation shall be incumbent upon him when the management had for its purpose the prevention of an imminent and manifest loss, although no benefit may have been derived. You stepped in to prevent an impending loss. The fact that no benefit came of it does not extinguish the owner's obligation to reimburse you.
Why the law protects people who act in emergencies
The logic behind the emergency exception is straightforward: if people who act to prevent imminent losses could only recover when their efforts succeeded, the law would discourage exactly the kind of conduct it wants to encourage. You may not control whether a fire spreads, whether a flood reaches the goods, or whether the threat ultimately materializes. What matters is that your purpose was to prevent a real, impending, and obvious loss. The law holds the owner accountable for the value of that attempt, not just for the outcome.
What you may claim
The statute specifies what reimbursement covers: the owner must pay for necessary and useful expenses incurred in managing the business and for damages which the latter may have suffered in the performance of his duties. Necessary expenses are those without which the purpose of the intervention would have been impossible. Useful expenses are those that improved or protected the business even if not strictly indispensable. If you were physically harmed, incurred losses, or spent money directly because you stepped in to help, those losses are also covered.
The loss must have been imminent and manifest
The emergency exception requires that the threatened loss be both imminent — meaning it was about to happen, not a vague future risk — and manifest — meaning it was clearly apparent, not speculative. If the danger was obvious to a reasonable person at the moment you acted, the condition is likely satisfied. A threat that was distant or uncertain may not qualify. The clearer and more pressing the danger was when you intervened, the stronger your claim for reimbursement.