| Aitken v. The John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company, A Corp.

• Decision Date: 25 January 1940
• Docket Number: No. 11.,11.
• Citation: | Aitken v. The John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company, A Corp., 10 A.2d 745, 124 N.J.L. 58 (N.J. 1940)
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court
• Parties: JAMES AITKEN, PLAINTIFF-RESPONDENT, v. THE JOHN HANCOCK MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, A CORPORATION, DEFENDANT-APPELLANT

10 A.2d 745

124 N.J.L. 58

AITKEN

v. JOHN HANCOCK MUT. LIFE INS. CO.

No. 11.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

Jan. 25, 1940.

Appeal from Supreme Court.

Action on two life policies having a clause of extra indemnity for death by accident by James Aitken against the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company. From a judgment of the Supreme Court, 122 N.J.L. 436, 6 A.2d 133, which affirmed a judgment of the district court in favor of the plaintiff, defendant appeals.

Reversed.

Drewen & Nugent, John Drewen, and John Nugent, all of Jersey City, for defendant-appellant.

Charles A. Rooney, of jersey City, for plaintiff-respondent.

BODINE, Justice.

The appeal in this case is from a judgment in the District Court of the Second Judicial District of Hudson County, affirmed in the Supreme Court, 122 N.J.L. 436, 6 A.2d 133. The holding was that Mary Aitken, the insured, met her death through external accidental means. If we could disturb the finding on the weight of evidence, we would do so because the proofs from the mouth of her attending physician clearly demonstrate that the deceased died of coronary occlusion due to a long-standing disease of the arteries.

The official death certificate recites the cause of death as accidental injuries received from a fall from a ladder. Such certificate was not made by the attending physician, but by the acting county physician.

Revised Statutes 1937, 40:21-24, N.J.S.A. 40:21-24, provides in part that: "In all cases of death in prison, and all violent, sudden or casual deaths within the county, the county physician shall view the body, and make all proper inquiries respecting the cause and manner of the death, for the purpose of ascertaining whether an inquest should be held." Presumably, the county physician examined the deceased pursuant to this statute, but made little or no inquiry such as would have revealed the true situation.

Revised Statutes, 26:6-8, N.J.S.A. 26:6-8, provides that "* * * In the execution of a death certificate, the personal particulars shall be obtained from the person best qualified to supply them. The death and last sickness particulars shall be supplied by the attending physician, or if there be no attending physician, by the county physician, or coroner. The burial particulars shall be supplied by the undertaker. Each informant shall certify to the particulars supplied by him by signing his name below the list of items furnished." The duty to make a death certificate devolves upon the county physician when there is no attending physician. Where, as here, there was an attending physician the particulars should have been supplied by him.

The other tribunals, however, felt that the certificate improperly made without regard to law or truth must be given prima facie credence under the provision of Revised Statutes, 2:98-14, ...