Court Opinion

ID: 9582697
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:30:25.843402+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:38:15.097477
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Counsel for the plaintiff in error in a motion for rehearing insist that upon proof of the cause of death and that the death was due to suicide, the presumption against suicide disappears, and that the presumption that the death was accidental cannot be used to aid the plaintiff in proving that the death was accidental in the face of the death certificate showing that the death was due to suicide. And they contend that the death certificate is controlling evidence and demands a finding that the death was due to suicide. The argument thus advanced ignores the distinction between proof of a matter and mere evidence thereof, and overlooks the fact that the resolution of the question of whether particular evidence amounts to proof of a fact lies exclusively *584within the province of the jury to decide. Thus, the rules of law announced in such cases as N. Y. Life Ins. Co. v. Ittner, 59 Ga. App. 89 (1) (200 S. E. 522) relied on by the plaintiff in error, while perhaps not appropriate as a charge to the jury, nevertheless, are rules which relate to the procedure to be followed by the jury in resolving these questions, and have been laid down by the courts as an aid in analyzing and determining whether the jury has properly discharged its duty in this respect. In the final analysis, whether or not the prima facie evidence of the cause of death, as set out in the death certificate in this case, that the death of the insured was due to suicide, was .overcome by evidence of all the facts and circumstances was a question to be decided by the jury on consideration of all the evidence. To give to the death certificate the weight and importance as evidence of the cause of death contended for by the plaintiff in error would be virtually to permit the attending physician or other person making out a death certificate to decide the very issue being tried by the jury. This we do' not believe was ever the result intended to be reached by the decisions holding that a death certificate is prima facie evidence of the, cause of death. The jury having decided that the death of the insured was not due to suicide or to an intentionally inflicted wound, before this court can reverse that finding, it must say that there was no¡ evidence to sustain it. In the instant case, this court is unable to say that the jury’s verdict was not authorized.

Rehearing denied.