Woman (58) has been trying for three years to prove that she is not dead: “I am nothing” | Abroad

In November 2017, Jeanne Pouchain, a woman from Saint-Joseph (near Lyon), was officially declared dead. Only: the woman was – and has not died to date.

How that is possible? It all started because of a financial difference with an ex-employee of her cleaning company. That woman stated more than three years ago that her former boss had died. And the judge believed her, even though she could not provide any evidence for it, Het Nieuwsblad reports.

No problem, thought Pouchain. I’m just going to go to court to show that I’m still alive and everything is resolved. Only: it was not resolved. Not even after her doctor had issued an official statement stating that she was still healthy and well. “Because a court decision had been passed, this was not enough,” said Pouchain.

‘Crazy story’

“It’s a crazy story,” says her lawyer Sylvain Cormier. “I really couldn’t believe that a judge would pronounce anyone dead without an official death certificate. Yet it happened: someone claimed it and everyone just took her word for it. ”

So everything revolved around a financial dispute that has been going on for years. In 2004 Pouchain was sentenced to pay 14,000 euros in damages to the employee for allegedly having been unlawfully dismissed. Since the case was against her company and not Pouchain personally, the court decision was never enforced. In 2009, the former employee filed a new lawsuit, but without success.

However, in 2016, an appeals court, which believed that Pouchain had died, ruled that her husband and son had to pay for the damages. The following year, the ex-employee told the court that the letters to her former boss went unanswered because she had died. In November 2017, Pouchain was officially declared dead and her identity card, driver’s license, bank account, insurance and other official documents were annulled.

‘I am nothing’

We are now more than three years later and Pouchain is still officially not back with the living. “I don’t have an identity card, no insurance. I cannot prove to the bank that I am still alive. I am nothing ”, she stated earlier.

This week, her attorney is making another attempt to resurrect his client. Although the prosecution’s lawyer wants to put a stop to that. She claims that not his client, but Pouchain herself staged her own death in order to avoid compensation.

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