Chapter on the Estate of Those Drowned or Crushed Under Debris

This problem arises frequently and is exceedingly complex: the case of mass death in which several people who could inherit from one another perish together, and no one knows who died first—thus becoming the deceased—and who died later—thus becoming the heir. Such situations are common nowadays because of traffic disasters that claim groups of lives, such as car, plane, and train crashes; as well as building collapses, fires, drownings, wartime bombardments, and the like.

When such an event occurs, the matter falls into one of five scenarios:

1. First scenario: it is certain that every member of the group died at the very same instant, with none preceding the others. In this case there is, by unanimous agreement, no inheritance among them, for one of the conditions of succession is that the heir be alive after the death of the person whose estate is to be inherited, and that condition is absent here.

2. Second scenario: it is known that a particular individual among them died after another, and—