CHAPTER 132.
OF PERSONS PRESUMED TO BE DEAD.
AN ACT in relation to payments made to or by executors or administrators of persons presumed to be dead.
SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of .Representatives of the State of Delaware in General Assembly met; That whenever letters testamentary or letters of administration have made to or shall hereafter be granted by the Register of Wills, in and for either of the counties of this State, upon the estate of any person presumed to be dead, by reason of his or presumed to be dead, her absence from the State, and no intelligence concerning him or her for a period of seven years, any payment made to such executor or administrator by any debtor of the person presumed to be dead, or any payment by such executor or administrator to any creditor of the person presumed to be dead in the proper discharge of his office as such executor or administrator, shall be good and valid in law, and shall operate as a discharge to any party so making such payment, though it should afterwards appear that the person presumed to be dead be actually alive at the time of the granting of the said letters.
SECTION 2. And be it further enacted, That whenever distribution shall be made of the residue of the personal estate of any such person presumed to be dead as aforesaid, and payments shall be made in pursuance thereof, such payments shall be good and valid in law, and shall constitute in law a complete defence in behalf of the person so paying the same against any demand on the part of the person presumed to be dead, in case he shall be actually alive.
Passed at Dover, January 21), 1879.