Court upholds decision to annul death declaration

The Supreme Court of Canada has affirmed a judge’s decision to annul the declaration of a Quebec man’s death when new evidence indicated he was actually alive and well in Iran.

One day in February 2008, Hooshang Imanpoorsaid told his family he was going on a business trip to Toronto.

The next day, he sent two of his children an email saying that “things got out of hand and to fix it, drastic measures are necessary to be taken.”

He never returned to their Brossard home in the greater Montreal area.

Shortly before he vanished, Imanpoorsaid changed his life insurance policy to make his spouse, Deborah Carol Riddle, the sole primary beneficiary.

Eight years after Imanpoorsaid’s disappearance, Riddle went to court to obtain a judgment declaring his death.

The man’s insurer, anticipating it would have to pay out money under the life insurance policy, opposed a pronouncement of his death.

The company argued the circumstances of the heavily indebted man’s disappearance suggested he was trying to evade his creditors.

Despite the objections, the court allowed the application and declared that Imanpoorsaid had died seven years after his disappearance, in keeping with Quebec law.

Upon hearing new evidence, Quebec Superior Court Justice Geeta Narang ruled it was more probable than not that Imanpoorsaid was alive and the declaration of death would have to be annulled.

Narang said there were “reliable signs” that Imanpoorsaid obtained a national identification card and a passport in Iran, travelled in and out of the country and registered for Iranian state benefits.

“This is sufficient to annul the declaratory judgment of his death,” she wrote in the 2021 ruling. “The legal fiction declaring him to be dead must be set aside to make room for the reality that he is probably alive.”

In 2023, the Quebec Court of Appeal upheld the decision to reverse the death declaration. Riddle then took her case to the Supreme Court.

In the top court’s 9-0 ruling Friday, Chief Justice Richard Wagner said a judgment declaring death lifts the paralyzing veil of uncertainty and allows life to move on.

“However, because the declaratory judgment of death is a fiction, it must always yield where there is proof that the person who disappeared is currently alive,” Wagner wrote on behalf of the court.

The Civil Code of Quebec sets out the consequences of the reappearance of such an “undead person” in those rare cases where someone about whom there has been no news for several years resurfaces, Wagner noted.

The Supreme Court found neither Narang nor the Court of Appeal erred in determining the applicable legal framework for proving the return of a person declared dead.

The evidence that the person is currently alive must satisfy the court on a balance of probabilities, the top court said.

“The evidence must be clear and convincing so as to rebut the presumption of death, but no specific threshold of certainty is required,” Wagner wrote.

“While the physical presence of the person declared dead will always be the best proof that they are currently alive, a judge may be satisfied with evidence establishing that the person is still living, particularly where the circumstances suggest that their disappearance or reclusion is voluntary.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 10, 2026. 

By Jim Bronskill | Copyright 2026, The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.