A woman sentenced to death in 2017 is struggling to be declared alive

PARIS – The French Jeanne Pouchain has an unusual problem. She is officially dead. She has been trying to prove she is alive for three years.

The 58-year-old woman says she lives in constant fear, not daring to leave her home in the village of Saint Joseph, in the Loire region. Authorities seized his car for an unpaid debt that he disputes and is at the center of his problems. She fears the family furniture will be the following.

Pouchain’s situation has prevented her and her husband, who is her legal beneficiary along with her son, from using her joint bank account. The deceased’s statement has deprived her of other critical conveniences.

“I don’t exist anymore,” Pouchain said over the phone. “I don’t do anything … I sit in the gallery and write.” She called the situation “macabre.”

Pouchain’s condition of death is the result of a 2017 Lyon court ruling that found her dead even though no death certificate was issued. The decision came at the end of a legal dispute with an employee of Pouchain’s former cleaning company, who was seeking compensation after losing her job 20 years ago.

But the initial complaint in court of Prudhomme’s workers in France failed and fell on Pouchain, whose lawyer claims his company had no responsibility for the dismissal. It followed a series of court proceedings, decisions and appeals, up to the Court of Cassation, the highest court in France, which dismissed the case outside its domain, said Pouchain and his lawyer, Sylvain Cormier.

According to Pouchain and his lawyer, the snowball court errors ended with the 2017 ruling of the Lyon Court of Appeals that Pouchain was not among the living. The legal extreme is very unknown because, according to Pouchain, neither she nor her relatives received a summons for the hearing.

Pouchain’s husband and son were left with an order to pay 14,000 euros ($ 17,000) to the former employee.

Cormier, his lawyer, last Monday filed an unusual motion to invalidate the 2017 decision of the Lyon Court of Appeal due to a “serious error” by the judges. He said he had never dealt with such a “crazy” case.

“At first, I had a hard time believing my client,” he said.

Pouchain says he cannot forgive his former employee for his situation, but will not identify the woman. The former employee’s attorney did not respond to several requests for comment.

Cormier points his fingers at the judges and his “extreme reluctance to repair his mistake.”

“When a mistake is so huge, it’s hard to admit,” he said.

Pouchain remains hopeful that his lawyer’s proposal to set aside the trial will be successful.

“It’s my last chance to get my life back,” he said.