Court Opinion

ID: 9675465
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:54:46.982066+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:34.828883
License: Public Domain

SWOFFORD, Chief Judge,
dissenting.
I concur in the dissenting opinion of Pritchard, J. and would quash the writ of prohibition as having been improvidently issued. I do not find it speculative or even difficult to arrive at the conclusion that the legislative intent of Sections 58.445 to 58.-449, RSMo (Laws 1973) was to collect statistics in highway death accidents in order to promote highway safety for the public generally. It is equally clear to me that as a concomitant of this broad, general and salutary purpose the legislation specifically and clearly limited not only the use of the autopsy findings to “statistical purposes” but also mandated that the identity of the deceased was protected and cannot be revealed.
To my mind, all logic and reason lead irresistibly to the conclusion that this latter provision was intended as a protection to the surviving family or personal representa*715tives of the deceased. The plaintiff in the underlying case falls within such class. This statutory protection or privilege, as any other privilege, can be waived and was specifically and unequivocally waived by the plaintiff, as held in the dissenting opinion, with which I concur.