It literally is true, though. As I said, and the paper reported: the guy was ruled dead, came before a judge and asked for the judgement to be revoked, and the judge told him "I don’t know where that leaves you, but you’re still deceased as far as the law is concerned".

The issue here was that the guy had disappeared for a long time, and been declared dead in full accordance with the law. That specific law didn't have a clause to help reverse wrongful declarations of death, so the judge had to let it stand.

The relevance of the ten year and back payments is mostly that it decreased sympathy for the guy, not that it changed the outcome.

But it actually is true in this case.

Even if actually true, the context explains the entire difference between what was said and what was expected.