Matter of Wallace

In Matter of Wallace, 239 A.D.2d 14 (1998), the Appellate Division concluded that this court had no subject matter jurisdiction over an application by the administrator of a decedent's estate for preaction disclosure to aid in the bringing of a wrongful death action. In the Wallace Court's view, wrongful death actions "are based not upon damage suffered by the decedent's estate, but rather upon the pecuniary loss suffered by the decedent's distributees" (id. at 15 ). Wallace concluded that wrongful death claims involve controversies between living persons and were "not matters affecting the estate of the decedent" (id.)