§ 25-1402.Actions which abate by death of defendant.

Section 25-1402 sets the general rule for cases already underway: death of a party, by itself, does not end the lawsuit. No action pending in any court abates because either or both parties have died. That default keeps litigation moving forward rather than forcing it to start over, so long as someone can step into the deceased party’s place.

The exception is narrow and defendant-specific. An action for libel, slander, malicious prosecution, assault, or assault and battery, or for a nuisance, abates on the death of the defendant. These are claims tied closely to the wrongdoer personally, and Nebraska law lets them end when that defendant dies rather than continuing against an estate or successor. The exception applies to the defendant’s death; it does not by its terms extend the abatement to the plaintiff’s death for these same claim types.

Read together with § 25-1401, this section completes the survival picture. Section 25-1401 says which additional claims survive beyond the common law. Section 25-1402 confirms that surviving actions already in progress do not automatically abate, then carves out the specific personal-tort claims that abate anyway when the defendant dies. For any action that does survive, §§ 25-1403 through 25-1414 spell out how the case proceeds with a successor or representative standing in for the party who died.