Legal Representatives´ Suits Act, 1855

This short 1855 Act changed an old common-law rule under which certain lawsuits used to die along with the person involved. It allows executors, administrators, or other legal representatives of a deceased person to sue -- or be sued -- over wrongs that caused financial loss and that happened within one year before the person's death.

Section 1 states that a representative may bring a claim on behalf of a deceased person's estate for a wrong that caused the estate pecuniary (financial) loss, provided the wrong occurred within a year of the person's death; any damages recovered become part of the deceased's personal estate. It similarly allows a claim to be brought against the representatives of a deceased wrongdoer for a wrong that person committed within a year before their death, with recovered damages treated like an ordinary debt of the estate.

Section 2 ensures that a lawsuit already underway does not automatically end ("abate") just because one of the parties dies -- it can continue with the deceased party's executor, administrator, or representative stepping in. It also allows the representatives being sued to raise a "want of assets" defence, meaning they can argue the estate lacks enough money to pay, in whole or in part, just as the original defendant could have.

This is a very old statute (1855) and the extract's footnotes show that its original one-year limitation language was later modified by the Limitation Act framework and other amending laws, so any specific time limits should be checked against the current Limitation Act rather than relied on from this text alone.