Request By:
Mr. Roy A. Martin
Dowell - Martin Funeral Home
Mt. Vernon, Kentucky 40456
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
The facts surrounding your problem were given as follows in your letter:
"On June 18, 1979, a man from this city was in a car accident in this county. He was taken by ambulance to our local hospital and transferred immediately to Veterans Hospital in Lexington, Ky. The man had been treated before and had had surgery at Veterans Hospital before this accident. He also had a drinking problem and had been treated for that also.
"This gentlemen died the next day, Tuesday, June 19, 1979. We received a signed death certificate the following week listing the cause of death being cardio pulmonary arrest, due to chronic liver disease secondary to alcohol abuse. There was no mention of a car accident or the injuries he suffered from this accident."
Your question reads:
"Should not the Fayette Co. Coroner have signed this death certificate since it was legally a coroner's case. Also should he have conducted some sort of inquiry into this matter since he was involved in a car accident and was in the hospital just a little over 24 hours. The coroner's office was called to the hospital at the time of death but that was where it all stopped."
As to whether the coroner should have conducted an inquest, that is controlled by KRS 72.020, 72.405, and 72.410. A coroner's case, as defined in KRS 72.405(2), means a case in which the coroner has reasonable cause for believing that the death of a human being within his county was caused by homicide, crime, violence, accident, sucide, poison, drowning, illegal abortion, or unusual circumstances. It also includes death where unattended by a physician for more than thirty-six (36) hours prior to death. Under KRS 72.020(1), the coroner is required to hold an inquest where an individual has been slain or otherwise suddenly killed.
It was up to the coroner to make a sound judgment as to whether any of the above conditions existed authorizing the exercise of his inquest jurisdiction. The statutes point up that the coroner should be called in only where the circumstances indicate that the death might be from other than natural causes.
Clearly if the coroner had reason to believe, in connection with the auto accident, that he had a coroner's case under KRS 72.405(2), he had the authority to hold an inquest even if the cause of the unnatural death took place in another county. "Under the common law, only the coroner within whose jurisdiction the injury causing the death has been received has authority to hold the inquest, and the inquest must be held in that county. * * * This common law rule has been suspended in England by a statute providing that the coroner within whose jurisdiction a body lies dead shall hold the inquest, notwithstanding the cause of death did not arise within the jurisdiction of such coroner. " 18 Am.Jur.2d, Coroners or Medical Examiners, § 9, p. 523. See Reg. V. Ellis, 2 Car. & K 470, 175 Eng. Reprint 149; Reg. v. Great Western R. Co., 3 QB 333, 114 Eng. Reprint 533. Kentucky follows the English situation since KRS 72.405(2), in defining a coroner's case, speaks of "the death of a human being within his county . . ." (Emphasis added).
Under the factual complications given, it would be up to the courts to determine whether the coroner acted arbitrarily in refusing to conduct an inquest. In view of the deceased's surgical history and the history of alcohol abuse, on its face the courts might very well hold that the coroner did not wrongfully withhold jurisdiction. Such a holding would be buttressed by the fact that the statutes do not require the coroner to be a medical doctor, plus the fact that deceased was under the care of medical doctors or surgeons for several hours prior to his decease. In addition, the statutes, KRS 72.020 and 72.405, indicate that there must be a reasonable probability of the death's being an unnatural death. See also 18 Am.Jur.2d, Coroners or Medical Examiners, § 7, p. 521.
The second question is whether the coroner should have signed the death certificate.
The coroner is required to sign the death certificate in coroner's cases. See also KRS 213.090. Since this was not in fact a coroner's case, the doctor or surgeon in attendance upon the deceased before he died was the proper person to sign the death certificate. See KRS 72.465(1). The death certificate must be signed by the physician, if any, last in attendance on the deceased. KRS 213.080(2) . Even in the case of death by violence, the attending physician or surgeon should sign the death certificate.