Case Name: Maine, Appellant, vs. Maryland Casualty Company and another, Respondents
Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Wisconsin
Decision Date: 1920-09-25
Citations: 172 Wis. 350
Docket Number: 
Parties: Maine, Appellant, vs. Maryland Casualty Company and another, Respondents.
Judges: 
Reporter: Wisconsin Reports
Volume: 172
Pages: 350–362

Head Matter:
Maine, Appellant, vs. Maryland Casualty Company and another, Respondents.
June 4
September 25, 1920.
Witnesses: Form of objection - to incompetency: Privilege in respect to testimony of physician: Waiver by patient: Implied waiver: Waiver by personal representative or beneficiary in insurance policy: Hearsay.
1. Objections not expressly directed to the incompetency of physicians as witnesses, but rather to the incompetency of their testimony, will be considered on appeal where both court and counsel were apprised of the statute relied upon and it is clear that the questions were squarely presented to the trial court.
2. Sec. 4075, Stats., prohibiting a physician from testifying as to information acquired professionally from a patient, was enacted for the benefit of the patient, and the protection or privilege accorded the patient thereby may be waived by him; but it cannot be waived by administrators, executors, or personal representatives of the patient or by a beneficiary under his insurance policy.
3. In an action on an accident policy which involved the question whether the death of the insured was the result of an accident, the testimony of physicians who attended him is incompetent, under sec. 4075, the protection of such statute not having been impliedly waived by the insured on taking out the policy merely because of the possibility of the need of such testimony in an action on the policy following the death of the insured. • •
4. Declarations of the insured to his physicians, made some days subsequent to the accident, as to the cause of injury, are inadmissible, being hearsay and not a part of the res gestee.
Owen and Siebecker, JJ., dissent.
Appeal from a judgment of the circuit court for La Crosse county: E. C. Higbee, Circuit Judge.
Affirmed.
This action is to recover on a policy of accident insurance. The plaintiff is the widow and beneficiary under said policy of C. D. Maine, the insured, who it is claimed was injured on November 14, 1918, resulting in his death thirteen days later.
The decedent on the day in question moved a heavy icebox on a neighbor’s premises. On the following day he gave an indication of pain in his side by frequently placing his hand there when standing up. Two days áfter the accident he lay down on a couch during the daytime, complaining of pain in the same place, which appeared to be over the gall duct on the right side of the abdomen. Shortly thereafter he was attended by physicians, and on November 21st was taken to the hospital and there operated upon.
The medical testimony shows that, prior to being sent to' the hospital, the diagnosis of some of the physicians was that there was an infection of the gall bladder. The operation disclosed, however, that a part of the omentum, which is a part of the ■ peritoneum or membrane lining of the abdominal cavity, had become gangrenous to an extent about the size of the palm of a hand. This portion was removed, but subsequently there developed a paralysis of the muscles in the walls of the intestines and a secondary operation was performed. The distention of the bowels caused by such paralysis increased and he died on November 27th as a result thereof.
The testimony indicated that such condition of the membrane was probably produced by a twisting as the result of some violent physical strain on or of the patient’s body.
Under the testimony received by the court under its first ruling there was evidence that the deceased had at several times, but more than two days after the accident, stated to the attending physicians who were then treating him professionally that he had twisted himself at the time he was moving the ice-box on November 14th and that he attributed the. subsequent pain to such twisting.
The physicians further testified that considering what was disclosed at the operations and the autopsy, taken in connection with the statements that the deceased made to them as to the moving of the ice-box, they ascribed the cause of his death as being traceable to such injury.
A motion was made by the defendant to strike out the testimony of such physicians, which was granted, and thereupon the defendant moved for a directed verdict in its favor, which the court granted “solely upon the ground that the only evidence of the accident which is claimed was the proximate cause of the deceased’s death is the statements of the physicians and surgeons who were called to treat him and to operate upon him, and the court being of the opinion that such testimony was incompetent because of the privilege, under sec. 4075 of our Statutes, that there is no evidence to sustain the claim of the plaintiff to the effect that there was an accident within the meaning of the terms of the policy.”
The policy in suit contained the following:
“Affirmative proof of death, or loss of limb or sight, or duration of disability, must be furnished to the company within two months from the time of death, or loss of limb or sight, or termination of disability for which the company is liable. No suit for recovery hereunder may be brought until after three months from the date of filing final proofs at the company’s home office. ...”
“14. The company shall have the right and opportunity, to examine the person of the assured or beneficiary when and so often as it requires in case of injury and also the right and opportunity to make an autopsy in case of death.”
From a judgment of dismissal of the complaint upon the merits plaintiff has appealed.
For the appellant there was a brief by Winter, Morris, Esch & Holmes of La Crosse, and oral argument by Frank Winter.
For the respondents there was a brief by George H. -Gordon, Lazv & Gordon of La Crosse and James E. Coleman of Milwaukee, and oral argument by George H. Gordon.

Opinion:
The following opinion was filed June 23, 1920:
Eschweiler, J.
It is conceded in this case that there.is no evidence in the record sufficient to support a verdict for the plaintiff upon the accident insurance policy in suit except and unless the testimony of physicians who attended the deceased subsequent to November 14th as to what was disclosed by the surgical operations performed by them, and including statements made by him to them concerning the alleged twisting or injury sustained in the moving of the ice-box, was erroneously stricken out. The trial court excluded it under the following portion of sec. 4075, Stats.:
"No person duly authorized to practice physic or surgery shall be permitted to disclose any information which he may have acquired in attending any patient in a professional character, and which information was necessary to enable him to prescribe for such patient as a physician or to do any act for him as a surgeon."
Appellant contends that the defendant should be prevented from asserting any right under such statutory provision, first, because of want of proper objection either to the competency of such physicians to testify as witnesses or to their testimony as it was being received; and secondly, because it must be considered that the exclusioñ of such testimony under said sec. 4075, being a privilege accorded the patient, was one that might be waived, and under the situation in this case was so waived.
We do not deem it necessary to recite in detail the manner and form in which the offered testimony on the points here in issue was objected to by the defendant from time to time as the same was being offered and was at first received. Objections were interposed as to the competency of the evidence on the ground of privilege, and also in a form in dicating that some of such objections were based upon the ground that the statements by the deceased as to the alleged accident on November 14th, made some considerable time thereafter, were not parts of the res gestes. That the objections were intended to be to the incompetency of the witnesses to testify rather than to the incompetency of their testimony, was perhaps not so precisely or concretely stated during the earlier stages of the trial as might have been advisable, but it is rendered immaterial in the disposition of this case for the reason that court and counsel were apprised that reliance was being expressly placed by defendant upon the section of the statute above quoted.
Upon subsequent motions made by defendant and the action of the trial court, it is clear that the questions now considered were squarely presented to the trial court, so that the first objection raised by appellant on this appeal as to the form of defendant's objections to this testimony must be overruled.
Although sec. 4075, Stats., supra, makes no exception in terms as to the application of the peremptory language of the statute excluding the testimony of physicians or surgeons as to information received by them professionally from a patient, yet it is also well established that such statutory provision, being intended as a protection to the patient rather than a mere inhibition to the physician, is a protection or privilege that may be waived by him for whose benefit it is deemed to have been enacted, and therefore such testimony may, notwithstanding the statute, be admitted, it satisfactorily appearing that the patient's privilege has been waived. McGinty v. Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen, 166 Wis. 83, 89, 164 N. W. 249; Will of Hunt, 122 Wis. 460, 469, 100 N. W. 874.
There was no express waiver by the patient in this instance, and it cannot be waived by the administrators, executors, or personal representatives of the deceased nor by any person standing in the position towards deceased such as does tlie plaintiff beneficiary under the policy in suit. Casson v. Schoenfeld, 166 Wis. 401, 413, 166 N. W. 23.
It is urged, however, and largely from the standpoint of the probable injustice that will otherwise result in this instance as well as in similar situations, that under the facts in this case it was intended by the insured that there should be a waiver of such privilege from his taking out such an accident policy, in that the very nature of the contract necessarily implies that it was anticipated that in case of accident the testimony of attending physicians or surgeons would be- required in order to establish a right to recover either for the insured himself in case of an injury not resulting in his death, or for the designated beneficiary in case such injury resulted in death.
It is further urged that the contract of insurance, providing as it does on its face for the furnishing by the insured or his beneficiary, respectively, of satisfactory proofs of injury or death, also indicates an intention on the part of the insured that the statutory exclusion of such material testimony as was being offered in this case was to be lifted and waived by the insured. Plaintiff also insists that in view of the conditions inserted for defendant's benefit in this contract, namely, those requiring statutory proofs of death, necessarily requiring the statement or evidence of physicians, and the further provision for the examination of the body of the insured under the clauses set forth in the statement of facts above, should prevent it from now asserting any benefits from a privilege belonging to the insured and not to the defendant or the witnesses themselves.
That such a statute as well as others that the state has adopted, on the ground of public policy, for the exclusion of testimony involving information acquired in such confidential relationships as that between physician and patient, lawyer and client, minister and penitent, undoubtedly does in particular instances result in the defeat of meritorious and just claims, may well malee us hesitate but cannot per mit us to do otherwise than uphold the law as it has been written. It must not be overlooked that such a privilege is somewhat of a double-edged sword, in that such patient could not waive his privilege so as to have admitted testimony elicited from a physician that was favorable to the patient's side of any controversy and at the same time insist upon the statute for the exclusion of further testimony on cross-examination or otherwise which might prove harmful to his cause. If the bars are lowered for and by him, they must be kept lowered for the opposite party.
Were such statute only for the benefit of parties situated towards the patient as is the defendant in this case, then there would be much force to the argument that such contract provisions should be held to be a waiver by it of such privilege. The possibility, however, of need of such testimony on any action on such an insurance policy does not justify, in our judgment, a conclusion that the patient himself, in the making of such a contract, thereby impliedly writes into.it a waiver on his part of such statutory privilege, which privilege, if thus waived by him, would necessarily be waived as against him if alive, or against his memory or reputation if dead.
The trial court was therefore right in ruling as he did that the information obtained by the medical witnesses while attending, prescribing for, and operating upon the patient was excluded and not permitted to be received in evidence by force of sec. 4075, supra.
Much of the apparent hardship resulting in this case from a dismissal of- plaintiff's cause of action, however, necessarily results from the application of another well established rule of evidence not dependent upon the statute.
The testimony of the physicians so excluded in this case on all the other points on .which it was offered would have been of no avail and weight unless there could have been connected with such testimony the declarations of the deceased, made some days subsequent to the accident to these same physicians, that he did injure himself by the moving of the ice-box. Such declarations were clearly no part of the res gestee, were hearsay and inadmissible. Hall v. American M. A. Asso. 86 Wis. 518, 525, 57 N. W. 366; Brahmsteadt v. Mystic Workers of the World, 152 Wis. 580, 582, 140 N. W. 354; Andrews v. U. S. C. Co. 154 Wis. 82, 87, 142 N. W. 487; Ætna L. Ins. Co. v. Ryan, 255 Fed. 483; Globe Acc. Ins. Co. v. Gerisch, 163 Ill. 625, 627, 45 N. E. 563; Budde v. Nat. Trav. Ben. Asso. 184 Iowa, 1219, 169 N. W. 766; Jones, Ev. (2d ed) § 345; 1 Corp. Jur. 500.
Recitals of past events made by an interested person are no more admissible because made to physicians or surgeons, even when necessarily so made for the purpose of proper treatment by them, than if made to other persons. Keller v. Gilman, 93 Wis. 9, 11, 66 N. W. 800; Kath v. Wis Cent. R. Co. 121 Wis. 503, 511, 99 N. W. 217; Peoria C. Co. v. Industrial Board, 284 Ill. 90, 93, 119 N. E. 996; Maryland C. Co. v. McCallum, 200 Ala. 154, 75 South. 902; 1 Corp. Jur. 500.
By the Court. — Judgment affirmed.
The following opinion was filed July 15, 1920: