Article 14: Revivor and Survival of Actions · Not amended since original codification · Last verified July 22, 2026
R.S.1867, Code § 454, p. 469; R.S.1913, § 8022; C.S.1922, § 8963; C.S.1929, § 20-1401; R.S.1943, § 25-1401.
At common law, many claims died with the person. If a plaintiff or defendant passed away before judgment, the claim often went with them, leaving no one to sue and no one to answer. Section 25-1401 widens the list of claims that outlive the parties. Beyond whatever already survived at common law, it adds actions for mesne profits, for injury to real or personal estate, and for deceit or fraud. Those claims may be brought, or kept alive, even though the person entitled to sue or the person liable has died.
This section is the foundation for the rest of Article 14. Every later section on revivor — reviving an action in the name of a successor, setting deadlines for that revivor, deciding who stands in for a dead party — assumes an answer to one threshold question: does the underlying cause of action survive death in the first place? Section 25-1401 supplies that answer for the claim types it names. If a claim survives, §§ 25-1403 through 25-1414 describe how the case keeps moving forward with new parties standing in for the one who died. If it does not, § 25-1402 explains which claims instead abate — meaning they end — when a party dies.
Mesne profits refers to the rents and profits a person wrongfully in possession of land collected while occupying it, a claim that often gets asserted alongside a lawsuit to recover the land itself. By naming that claim, along with injury to property and deceit or fraud, alongside whatever already survived at common law, the Legislature made sure a death mid-case does not automatically wipe out these particular categories of civil claims.
It depends on whether the underlying claim survives death. Section 25-1401 lists mesne profits, injury to real or personal property, and deceit or fraud as claims that survive, in addition to whatever already survived at common law. A surviving claim can be brought, or kept going, despite the death.
It refers to the rents and profits collected by someone who wrongfully occupied real property, a claim commonly brought alongside an action to recover possession of the land.
No. It adds specific categories — mesne profits, property injury, deceit or fraud — on top of causes of action that already survive at common law. Claims outside those categories may or may not survive depending on their nature and other statutes.
Section 25-1402 addresses which pending actions abate, or end, upon a party’s death, listing libel, slander, malicious prosecution, assault, and nuisance claims against a defendant as examples that abate rather than survive.
Yes. It speaks to the death of “the person entitled or liable,” covering both a deceased claimant and a deceased party who owed a legal duty.
Every later section on revivor procedure assumes the underlying claim survives. Section 25-1401 is where that survival question gets answered for the claim categories it names.