§ 8.01-11.Proceedings on writing binding deceased person.

Subsection A addresses a written obligation — a bond, note, or other written obligation — made to a person, or persons, who were already dead at the time it was executed. Rather than treating that obligation as unenforceable for lack of a living obligee, the section allows it to be proceeded on in the name of the personal representative of the deceased person, in the name of any survivors among several named obligees, or in the name of the representative of the last survivor.

Subsection B addresses the opposite situation: an obligor, rather than an obligee, who dies. If one person bound jointly or as a partner with another — by judgment, bond, note, or otherwise, for the payment of a debt, the performance or forbearance of an act, or any other thing — dies during the other obligor’s lifetime, the decedent’s representative may be charged in the same manner the decedent could have been charged, as if those bound jointly, or as partners, had been bound severally as well as jointly. That treats the surviving decedent’s estate as reachable on the obligation even though the traditional rule for joint obligations might otherwise let the obligation survive only against the living co-obligor.