Even if the plaintiff dies, wouldn't the royalties still be owed to the next of kin?
That may be of little consolation to the author if an inability to collect in a reasonable timeframe leads to an inability to afford medical expenses leading to a sooner death or less comfortable treatment prior to that point
Wouldn't be the first time when delaying tactics were used by big corp to make it so that there would be zero payout through some BS or that the suing person died.