The principle also exists to protect the estate and executors from liability for strictly personal acts of the deceased, such as charges for fraud.
It has been argued by academics[1] and acknowledged by the courts[2] that notwithstanding the Latinate form in which the proposition is expressed its origins are less antiquated.
It has been described by one Lord Chancellor (Viscount Simon) as: ...not in fact the source from which a body of law has been deduced, but a confusing expression, framed in the solemnity of the Latin tongue, in which the effect of death upon certain personal torts was inaccurately generalised.
[2] The maxim is first quoted in a case[a] from 1496, where a woman against whom a defamation judgment was issued died before paying the damages and costs.
[9] In England, the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1934 effectively overturned this rule for all actions in tort except defamation.