§ 25-1405.Death of party; cessation of powers of personal representative; right of action surviving to or against successor; revivor.

Section 25-1405 states the core revivor principle for Article 14. Where one of the parties to a pending action dies, or a party’s powers as personal representative cease, before judgment is entered, and the underlying right of action survives in favor of or against that person’s representatives or successor, the action may be revived. Once revived, it proceeds in the name of the representative or successor rather than the original party.

This section is the hinge between the survival rules in §§ 25-1401 and 25-1402 and the mechanics of revivor that follow. Section 25-1401 establishes which claims survive death at all. Section 25-1402 confirms that a pending, surviving action does not abate. Section 25-1405 then supplies the vehicle for keeping that surviving action moving forward: revivor in the name of whoever now holds the deceased party’s rights or obligations, whether that is a personal representative, an heir, a devisee, or another successor.

The sections that immediately follow fill in how revivor happens. Section 25-1406 describes the conditional order that accomplishes revivor. Section 25-1407 explains who can move for that order. Sections 25-1408 and 25-1409 cover how the order gets served, including by publication when the successor cannot be found or served directly. Sections 25-1410 through 25-1412 address the specific rules for reviving in the name of a deceased plaintiff’s successors, against a deceased defendant’s representatives, and in real-property actions.