Vargo v. Travelers Ins. Co., Inc.

• Citation: 34 Ohio St.3d 27,516 N.E.2d 226
• Decision Date: 09 December 1987
• Docket Number: No. 87-216,87-216
• Parties: VARGO, Appellee, v. TRAVELERS INSURANCE COMPANY, INC., Appellant.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Ohio

Page 27

34 Ohio St.3d 27

516 N.E.2d 226

VARGO, Appellee, v. TRAVELERS INSURANCE COMPANY, INC., Appellant.

No. 87-216.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

Dec. 9, 1987.

Syllabus by the Court

1. The coroner's factual determinations concerning the manner, mode and cause of death, as expressed in the coroner's report and the death certificate, create a nonbinding rebuttable presumption concerning such facts in the absence of competent, credible evidence to the contrary. (R.C. 313.19, construed.)

2. R.C. 313.19 does not deprive a civil litigant of due process of law. The statute does not compel the fact-finder to accept, as a matter of law, the coroner's factual findings concerning the manner, mode and cause of decedent's death.

On March 4, 1983, at approximately 6:00 p.m., decedent Louis Vargo was southbound on I-77 in Stark County, Ohio, when the vehicle he was operating swerved off the roadway into the median strip. The car continued its southerly course within the median strip for approximately fifty to seventy-five yards, then swerved abruptly back to the right, crossing both southbound lanes of I-77, climbing an embankment, crashing through a wire fence and proceeding in a straight line through a cornfield until striking a tree approximately nine hundred to thirteen hundred feet from the roadway. ¹ The decedent received cardiopulmonary resuscitation at the scene. The resuscitation efforts were unsuccessful.

Florence Vargo, the decedent's widow and appellee herein, sought thereafter to obtain insurance proceeds under a policy of insurance issued to decedent's employer, Youghiogheny & Ohio Coal Company, and pursuant to which decedent was an insured. The policy was issued by Travelers Insurance Company, appellant herein. Appellant denied coverage on the basis that the decedent had suffered his heart attack prior to the collision with the tree, and that its policy provided coverage only if the insured sustained bodily injury or death through accidental means directly and independently of all other causes. ²

Appellee thereupon filed the instant suit to compel payment of the insurance proceeds pursuant to the insurance contract. At trial, appellee utilized a medical expert in an attempt to establish that the decedent fell asleep at the wheel, woke up when the car left the roadway, then "froze" out of panic and suffered a heart attack as a result of the adrenalin surge. Conversely, appellant utilized three medical experts, the chief deputy coroner who performed the autopsy on decedent, a pathologist, and a cardiologist, who all testified that the heart attack was, without the involvement of external factors, caused by the decedent's degenerative heart disease. To further support its position, appellant introduced the coroner's report and death certificate which both reflect that the cause of death was "acute massive myocardial infarction due to or as a consequence of atherosclerotic heart disease."

The jury returned a unanimous verdict for appellant and the trial court entered judgment upon the verdict. Upon appeal, the court of appeals vacated the trial court's judgment and remanded the cause for a new trial on the basis that R.C. 313.19 was unconstitutional and deprived a party of due process by compelling the jury to accept, as a matter of law, the coroner's opinion as to the manner and mode of death, thus, in effect, directing the verdict for appellant herein. Additionally, the court of appeals reversed on the basis that the trial court erred by permitting one of appellant's medical experts to testify both to matters beyond the scope of his expertise and to testify with the aid of irrelevant, prejudicial statistical evidence.

The cause is now before this court pursuant to the allowance of a motion to certify the record.

Bailey, Byrum & Vieweg and John Preston Bailey, Wheeling W.Va., for appellee.

Arter & Hadden, Michael C. Zellers and Irene C. Keyse-Walker, Cleveland, for appellant.

DOUGLAS, Justice.

This instant cause poses two questions for our consideration. The first question is whether R.C. 313.19 impermissibly denies civil litigants due process of law by requiring fact-finders to accept, as a matter of law, the coroner's findings concerning the manner, mode and cause of death. The second issue is whether the trial court herein erred by permitting a medical expert to testify both beyond the scope of his expertise and with the aid of irrelevant statistical evidence.

As to the first question, appellee argues, and the court of appeals held, that R.C. 313.19 is constitutionally infirm because it both compels a fact-finder to accept the coroner's findings regarding the manner, mode and cause of the decedent's death, and because it clothes the coroner impermissibly with the power to make ex parte judicial determinations that are binding upon nonparties. We disagree with both of appellee's contentions.

R.C. 313.19 provides that:

"The cause of death and the manner and mode in which the death occurred, as delivered by the coroner and incorporated in the coroner's verdict and in the death certificate filed with the division of vital statistics, shall be the legally accepted manner and mode in which such death occurred, and the legally accepted cause of death, unless the court of common pleas of the county in which the death occurred, after a hearing, directs the coroner to change his decision as to such cause and manner and mode of death." (Emphasis added.)

Thus, the coroner's factual determinations shall be accepted unless, following a hearing, the common pleas court directs the coroner to change such determination. ³ Similarly, pursuant to R.C. 3705.04, the coroner may be compelled to show evidence supporting the facts contained within the death certificate and to issue an amended death certificate when so required. Statutes which create conclusive presumptions afford no such remedy opportunities.

Furthermore, this court has never interpreted ⁴ R.C. 313.19 as conclusively setting forth the manner, mode and cause of death. Instead, this court has found that " * * * [a] coroner's verdict as to the cause of death * * * is entitled to much weight * * *" (emphasis added), State v. Manago (1974), 38 Ohio St.2d 223, 227, 67 O.O.2d 291, 293, 313 N.E.2d 10, 13, and has approved of language that " ' * * * the death certificate * * * [is] admissible as prima facie evidence of the facts therein stated.' " Perry v. Indus. Comm. (1954), 160 Ohio St. 520, 524, 52 O.O. 387, 388, 117 N.E.2d 34, 37. Appellee has not persuaded us to alter our position.

Further, it must be noted that while the coroner's factual findings are not conclusive, neither are they a nullity. The coroner is a medical expert rendering an expert opinion on a medical question. State v. Cousin (1982), 5 Ohio App.3d 32, 35, 5 OBR 34, 38, 449 N.E.2d 32, 37. Therefore, to rebut the coroner's determination, as expressed in the coroner's report and the death certificate, competent, credible evidence must be presented.

Accordingly, we hold that the coroner's factual determinations concerning the manner, mode and cause of the decedent's death, as expressed in the coroner's report and death certificate, create a non-binding, rebuttable presumption concerning such facts in the absence of competent, credible evidence to the contrary.

Moreover, contrary to appellee's position that R.C. 313.19 permits the coroner to conduct an unconstitutional ex parte judicial determination, we believe that R.C. 313.19 merely recognizes the quasi-judicial character of the coroner's statutorily mandated duty to ascertain, in certain cases, a person's cause of death. As this court stated in State ex rel. Harrison v. Perry (1925), 113 Ohio St. 641, 644-645, 150 N.E. 78, 79, the coroner's duties " * * * become quasi-judicial in character when he is required to make a finding upon evidence as to whether or not a person whose body is found in the county came to his death by unlawful or suspicious means 'and proceed to inquire how the deceased came to his death, whether by violence from any other person or persons, * * * and all circumstances relating thereto.' " See R.C. 313.15 and 313.17. Thus, as the coroner is, by statute, required to engage in quasi-judicial activity when inquiring into the cause of death, the fact that such activity is conducted without the joinder of all possible parties does not make R.C. 313.19 per se unconstitutional.

Further, due process, which requires only the opportunity to be heard at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner, compels no more process than that which already exists in the instant cause. Neither the coroner's report nor the death certificate is conclusive concerning the manner, mode or cause of death. Both may be changed through the use of competent, credible evidence, since the coroner's findings are, in essence, a determination of a medical expert on a medical question. See State v. Cousin, supra. Due process requires no more.

Thus, we find that R.C. 313.19 suffers from no constitutional infirmities. Accordingly, we hold that R.C. 313.19 does not deprive a civil litigant of due process of law. The statute does not compel the fact-finder to accept, as a matter of law, the coroner's factual findings concerning the manner, mode and cause of the decedent's death.

Notwithstanding the above, appellee argues that the trial court impermissibly applied R.C. 313.19 in a conclusive manner when it instructed the jury to accept the coroner's report and findings as to the manner, mode and cause of the decedent's death. Again, we do not agree. The trial court instructed the jury as follows:

" * * * I charge you, as a matter of law, that the cause of death and the manner and mode in which the death occurred, as delivered by the coroner and incorporated in the coroner's report and in the death certificate, filed in this case, shall be the legally accepted manner and mode in which such death occurred, and the legally accepted cause of death,...