Short answer. No. Where the action is for recovery of money arising from contract and the defendant dies before final judgment, the case is not dismissed — it continues until final judgment, and a favorable judgment is then enforced through the procedure for prosecuting claims against the estate.
What the law says
When the action is for recovery of money arising from contract, express or implied, and the defendant dies before entry of final judgment in the court in which the action was pending at the time of such death, it shall not be dismissed but shall instead be allowed to continue until entry of final judgment. A favorable judgment obtained by the plaintiff therein shall be enforced in the manner especially provided in these Rules for prosecuting claims against the estate of a deceased person.
Rule 3, Section 20 — Action on contractual money claims. Read the full provision →
The case survives the defendant's death
The rule is direct about this: the action shall not be dismissed but shall instead be allowed to continue until entry of final judgment. This applies specifically to a case for recovery of money arising from contract, express or implied, where the defendant dies while the case is still pending in the court where it was filed. The plaintiff's contractual claim does not simply evaporate because the debtor is no longer alive to defend it in person.
Judgment is only the first step, not the end
Getting a favorable judgment does not mean the plaintiff can immediately execute against whatever assets the deceased debtor left. The judgment must instead be enforced in the manner especially provided in these Rules for prosecuting claims against the estate of a deceased person — the ordinary machinery for collecting from a decedent's assets, rather than an ordinary writ of execution against a living defendant.
This is specific to contractual money claims
The rule is framed around actions for recovery of money arising from contract. Other kinds of claims against a deceased party, arising outside a contractual relationship, may be treated differently under other provisions governing what happens to a pending action when a party dies. Knowing that the claim is contractual in nature is what puts a case within this particular rule.
What this means practically for a creditor
A creditor who has already sued to collect a contractual debt does not need to start over, or fear that the case simply disappears, when the debtor dies mid-litigation. The case proceeds to judgment as it otherwise would, with the practical difference that collecting on a favorable judgment afterward runs through the estate settlement process rather than ordinary post-judgment execution against the debtor personally, which is a different track with its own procedure to follow.