Request By:
Mr. Jerry W. Beyer
McCracken County Coroner
433 Monroe Street
Paducah, Kentucky 42001
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
The enactment of S.B. 271 in the 1982 session (Ch. 195) has raised certain questions in your mind.
Question No. 1: Specifically you give the example of a forty-one (41) year old caucasian with no prior medical history who arrives at a local hospital with what appears to be a death from heart related problems. You ask whether that is a coroner's case?
KRS 72.025 (Ch. 195, § 1) sets forth seventeen (17) different circumstances, each of which requires a "post mortem examination" (see KRS 72.405(4) for definition of post mortem examination) . However, under KRS 72.405(2), a coroner's case is any of the seventeen (17) conditions mentioned under KRS 72.025.
From the data given, such death is not a coroner's case, since it does not fit the description of any of the seventeen (17) conditions of death.
You also, under question no. 1, give the example of an eighty-three (83) year old female caucasian with a medical history, but she has not been seen by a physician or her physician has not examined her recently and will not sign the certificate. Here again, that description does not fit any of the seventeen (17) circumstances set out in KRS 72.025.
In both of the above cases, you ask: Who will sign the death certificate?
Since neither of the two cases is a coroner's case, you are not required to sign the death certificate. KRS 72.465. The doctor or surgeon in attendance upon the deceased before he or she died what is deemed a natural death is the proper person to sign the death certificate. See KRS 72.465(1). The death certificate must be signed by the physician, if any, last in attendance on the deceased (KRS 213.080(2)), where the death is deemed a natural one and is not a coroner's case. When death occurs without a physician in attendance, then under KRS 213.090(1), the undertaker shall give notice of the death to the registrar, who shall then refer the case to the local health officer for immediate investigation and certification, prior to the issuing of the burial permit. See
City of Ashland v. Miller, Ky., 283 S.W.2d 195 (1955).
Question No. 2 relates to KRS 72.025(9) (Ch. 195, § 1). That subsection is one (1) of seventeen (17) setting forth circumstances requiring post mortem examinations and constituting coroner cases pursuant to KRS 72.405(2). Subsection (9) reads:
"When the manner of death appears to be other than natural."
Your question is what does the language in subsection (9) mean?
A natural death is defined in Black's Law Dictionary, page 488, as follows:
"The cessation of life; the ceasing to exist; defined by physicians as a total stoppage of the circulation of the blood, and a cessation of the animal and vital functions consequent thereon, such as respiration, pulsation, etc. This is 'natural death, ' in contradistinction to 'civil death,' and, also, to 'violent death'."
"Violent death" is defined in Black's Law Dictionary at page 1742:
"Death caused by violent external means, as distinguished from natural death, caused by disease or the wasting of the vital forces."
Thus subsection (9) means an unnatural death. An unnatural death is an abnormal death resulting from an external agency or violence, as distinguished from a natural death. In
City of Ashland v. Miller, Ky., 283 S.W.2d 195 (1955) 196, the court wrote this about the coroner's function:
"Historically, the function of the coroner always has been to aid in the administration of criminal justice by inquiring into the circumstances of violent or suspicious deaths, and the object of an inquest has been to obtain information as to whether death was caused by some criminal act. 13 Am.Jur., Coroners, sec. 2, p. 106, sec. 6, p. 108."
Subsection (9) merely mentions an unnatural death in its most general form.
Question 3 reads:
Since the listing of all death which occurred without the attendance of a physician thirty-six (36) hours prior to death was removed from the bill by the legislature in all their wisdom, is the coroner still responsible to investigate these deaths if they are natural but are unattended by a physician or if they are natural and the physician who last treated them will not sign the death ceretificate since he did not expect a sudden death?
KRS 72.030 in effect provided that a coroner must hold an inquest when death occurs without the attendance of a physician at least thirty-six (36) hours prior to death. However, KRS 72.030 was repealed by Acts 1978, Ch. 93, § 21, effective June 17, 1978. Also see KRS 213.090(1) of similar import.
The controlling law on this is now found in KRS 72.405(2), amended in 1982, which defines "coroner's case" as involving one of the seventeen (17) conditions outlined in KRS 72.025. Thus since the situation you mention is a natural death, it is not a coroner's case, and you are not required to investigate it nor sign the death certificate.
Question 4 reads:
The listing of numbers of 1-17 requires a post mortem examination by a certified coroner or deputy coroner but is the general public under any responsibility to notify this office with reference to deaths in numbers 13 - 17, with reference to page number 3 of bill 271 section number 2 of KRS 72.020?
Under KRS 72.025, conditions 13 through 17 read:
"(13) When the death of an infant appears to be caused by sudden infant death syndrome in that the infant has no previous medical history to explain the death;
(14) When the death of a human being occurs as a result of an accident involving an airplane;
(15) When the death of a human being occurs under the age of forty (40) and there is no past medical history to explain the death;
(16) When the death of a human being occurs at the work site and there is no apparent cause of death such as an injury or when industrial toxics may have contributed to the cause of death; and
(17) When the body is to be cremated and there is no past medical history to explain the death.
KRS 72.020(1) provides:
(1) Any person, hospital or institution, finding or having possession of the body of any person whose death occurred under any of the circumstances defined in subsections (1) through (12) of Section 1 of this Act shall immediately notify the coroner, or his deputy and a law enforcement agency, which shall report to the scene within a reasonable time. No person shall remove the body or remove anything from the body until directed to do so by the coroner or his deputy, after the law enforcement agency is present or has failed, within a reasonable period of time, to respond.
It is our opinion that the phrase "circumstances defined in subsections (1) through (12) of Section 1 of this Act" (KRS 72.025) is controlling. Thus any person having possession of or finding a body of a person whose death occurred under any of the conditions outlined in subsections (1) through (12) of KRS 72.025 shall immediately notify the coroner or his deputy and a law enforcement agency, which shall report to the scene within a reasonable time.
Here the interpretation of KRS 72.020(1) is based upon: (1) the literal language of KRS 72.020(1) and (2) subsections (1) through (12) of KRS 72.025 primarily contain a criminal relation factor.