Commorientes, persons who die by the same accident or upon the same occasion. By English law, there was no presumption of survivorship in such a case, whereas by the Code Napoleon, and the Civil Law generally, there is a presumption that the physically stronger survive the physically weaker. See Wing v. Angrave, (1860) 8 HLC 183, in which a husband, a strong man who could swim well, was swept off the deck of a ship by the same wave which swept off his delicate wife who could not swim, Best on Evidence, s. 410: but now by s. 184 of the (English) Law of Property Act, 1925, in all cases where after 1925 two or more persons have died in circumstances rendering it uncertain which of them survived the other or others, such deaths shall (subject to any order of the Court) for all purposes affecting the title to property be presumed to have occurred in the order of seniority and accordingly the younger shall be deemed to have survived the elder.
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