Can an executor or administrator of an estate pursue a claim for damages arising from a criminal offence committed against a deceased person in the absence of a will?
British Columbia, Canada
The following excerpt is from Currie Estate v. Bowen, 1989 CanLII 2690 (BC SC):
In 1971 that section was repealed; in the present statute no express authority is granted to an executor or administrator of an estate to pursue a claim on behalf of a deceased person; had the legislature intended the cause of action survive, that section would not have been repealed and that confirms that this action is a personal one and, as Lord Mansfield put so starkly in Hambly v. Trott (1776), 1 Cowp. 371 at 375, 98 E.R. 1136 at 1138: Upon the face of the record, the cause of action arises ex delicto; and all private criminal injuries or wrongs, as well as public crimes, are buried with the offender.
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