Legal Dictionary of Pakistan

dead man's part

Hist. By custom in certain places, the portion of a dead man's estate given to the administrator. ( That portion ranged from one-third (if the deceased had a wife and children) to the entire estate amount (if the deceased had no wife or children). - Also termed death's part; (in Scots law) dead's part. "If the deceased leaves a widow and children, his substance ... is divided into three parts; one of which belongs to the widow, another to the children, and the third to the administrator: if only a widow, or only children, they shall respectively, in either case, take one moiety, and the administrator the other: if neither widow nor child, the administrator shall have the whole. And this portion, or dead man's part, the administrator was wont to apply to his own use, till the statute I Jac. II. c. 17 declared that the same should be subject to the statute of distributions." 2 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 518 (1766).