Case Name: Nancy ESGRO, as Personal Representative of the Estate of Angelo Esgro, Petitioner, v. James T. TREZZA, M.D., and James T. Trezza, M.D., P.A., Respondents
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1986-07-16
Citations: 492 So. 2d 422
Docket Number: No. 85-2847
Parties: Nancy ESGRO, as Personal Representative of the Estate of Angelo Esgro, Petitioner, v. James T. TREZZA, M.D., and James T. Trezza, M.D., P.A., Respondents.
Judges: HERSEY, C.J., and GLICKSTEIN, J., concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 492
Pages: 422–424

Head Matter:
Nancy ESGRO, as Personal Representative of the Estate of Angelo Esgro, Petitioner, v. James T. TREZZA, M.D., and James T. Trezza, M.D., P.A., Respondents.
No. 85-2847.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District.
July 16, 1986.
Rehearing and Certification Denied Aug. 27, 1986.
Stanley M. Rosenblatt of Stanley M. Ro-senblatt, P.A., Miami, for petitioner.
Alan D. Sackrin of Law Offices of Norman S. Klein, P.A., North Miami Beach, for respondent.

Opinion:
PER CURIAM.
Petitioner Nancy Esgro seeks review by petition for writ of certiorari of an order granting respondent's motion to exhume the body of her husband, Angelo Esgro. We deny the petition.
On April 12, 1984, respondent diagnosed the decedent Angelo Esgro as having angina, congestive heart failure, and chronic obstructive lung disease. Respondent prescribed certain medications and sent the decedent home. Two or three days later, the decedent collapsed at home and was brought to Memorial Hospital, dead on arrival. Respondent stated on the death certificate that the cause of death was cardiac arrest.
Approximately seven months later, petitioner sued respondent for negligence. Eight months later, respondent filed a motion to exhume the decedent's body for an autopsy. Respondent offered to forego exhumation if the death certificate which he completed would not be used against him. The trial court granted respondent's motion to exhume the decedent's body and then granted petitioner's motion to stay the order to permit this court to rule on this petition for writ of certiorari.
In our view petitioner has not satisfied the requirements of a petition for writ of certiorari.
The trial court could have provided supportive language for its position, rather than issuing a short order wherein it said in essence that the plaintiff was seeking damages by making the cause of death an issue. Perhaps no better language is that found in Life Investors Insurance Compa ny of America v. Heline, 285 N.W.2d 31 (Iowa 1979):
See also Wigmore, supra, at 197-98, quoted in Jarvis, 244 Iowa [1025] at 1035, 58 N.W.2d [24] at 29, where the author states:
The exhumation or the autopsy of a corpse, when useful to ascertain facts in litigation, should of course be performed. Reverence for the memory of those who have departed does not require us to abdicate the high duty of doing justice to the living_ [Emphasis in original.]
Id. at 34.
We have no pertinent disinterment statute here. Perhaps we should. Accordingly, the trial court was exercising its discretion when it acted upon the motion to disinter.
The deposition of Dr. Wright, the Broward County Medical Examiner, revealed that there was a "good possibility" that the subsequent autopsy would be revealing. Perhaps more telling is his opinion that the possibility of the deceased's having had a myocardial infarction is "fairly remote."
It may well be that the autopsy will settle the cause of death, once and for all. If a trial court is told that there is a good possibility of that occurring, as a reviewing court, we should not vitiate that judgment.
HERSEY, C.J., and GLICKSTEIN, J., concur.
DELL, J., dissents with opinion.
The quote was actually from an earlier edition of the treatise, but the language was not altered by the McNaughton revision.