Case ID: minn_65/html/0262-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "CANTY, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

JONAS M. KISTLER v. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF HENNEPIN COUNTY. 
    
    June 24, 1896.
    Nos. 9905—(187).
    Coroner’s Fees.
    Where the coroner on the samé day makes two separate examinations of two different dead bodies, or holds an inquest on one body, and makes an examination of the other, held, under G. S. 1894, § 5554, he is not entitled to a fee of five dollars for each examination and each inquest, or to anything more than five dollars per day “for the time actually spent.”
    Appeal by plaintiff from a judgment of the district court for Hennepin county, in favor of plaintiff for $109.10, entered in pursuance of the findings and order of Jamison, J.
    Affirmed.
    
      Rea, Hubachelt <fo Healy, for appellant.
    
      F. M. Nye and A. H. Nunn, for respondent,
    
      
       Reported in 68 N. W. 26.
    
   CANTY, J.

During the month of August, 1895, the coroner of Hennepin county, Minnesota, in several instances made two separate examinations of two different dead bodies on the same day, or held an inquest on one body and made an examination of another on the same day. The only question involved in this appeal is whether he is entitled to a fee of five dollars for each examination and each inquest, or whether he is entitled to no more than five dollars per day for the number of days actually occupied in the service, as held by the court helow. This depends on the construction of G-. S. 1894, § 5554, which, so far as here material, reads as follows:

“And for an inquest or examination of a dead body they [coroners] shall receive five dollars per day for the time actually spent, and ten cents per mile to and from the place where such inquest or examination shall take place.”

We are of the opinion that, under this statute, he is entitled to no more than five dollars per day “for the time actually spent”; and that if he makes two examinations, or an examination and an inquest, on the same day, he is not entitled to what, under the statute, would be double pay.

The judgment appealed from is affirmed.