Heuston v. Simpson

• Decision Date: 29 May 1888
• Citation: 115 Ind. 62,17 N.E. 261
• Parties: Heuston v. Simpson et al.
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

115 Ind. 62

17 N.E. 261

Heuston

v.Simpson et al.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

May 29, 1888.

Appeal from circuit court, Lawrence county; E. D. Pearson, Judge.

Action by Jonathan B. Heuston against William Simpson and others to set aside a will. Rev. St. Ind. 1881, § 497, declares: “The following persons shall not be competent witnesses: * * * Fourth, physicians, as to matter communicated to them, as such, by patients in the course of their professional duties, or advice given in such cases.”

Fred. L. Prow, George W. Friedley, and Joseph Giles, for appellant. Dunn & Dunn, W. H. Edwards, and Thad. Huston, for appellees.

Elliott, J.

This action was brought by the appellant to set aside the will of his deceased brother, David Heuston. The executor and devisees were made defendants. On the trial, two of the physicians who attended the testator in his last illness were called as witnesses, and the appellant proposed to prove by them the mental and physical condition of the testator. The appellees objected, on the ground that an attending physician cannot testify as to the result of an examination made by him in a professional capacity, nor as to any facts observed or learned by him while acting in that capacity. The objection prevailed. Appellees defend the ruling of the trial court upon the authorityof section 497, Rev. St., and the case of Association v. Beck, 77 Ind. 203. In that case the court quoted with approval from the case of Edington v. Insurance Co., 5 Hun, 1, this language: “The secrets of the sick-chamber cannot be revealed, because the patient was too sick to talk, or was temporarily deprived of his faculties by delirium or fever, or any other disease, or because the physician asked no questions. The statute seals the lips of the physician against divulging in a court of justice the intelligence which he acquired in the necessary discharge of his professional duty.” The last sentence in the extract we have made from Edington v. Insurance Co., supra, correctly declares the law. If the knowledge is acquired in the chamber of the patient, and in the discharge of professional duty, the physician can make no disclosure. This is true whether the knowledge is communicated by the words of the patient, or is gained by observation, or is the result of a professional examination. The law forbids the physician from disclosing what he learns in the sick-room, no matter by what method he acquires his knowledge. Association v. Beck, supra;Association v. Riddle, 91 Ind. 84;Insurance Co. v. Wiler, 100 Ind. 92;Turnpike Co. v. Andrews, 102 Ind. 138, 1 N. E. Rep. 364; Williams v. Johnson, 112 Ind. 273, 13 N. E. Rep. 872; Rap. Wit. § 272. The rule we have stated is a general one, for the statute makes no exceptions. It is a rule that may be invoked by the representatives of the...