United States Life Insurance v. Vocke

Citations

• 129 Ill. 557

Syllabus

<p>1. Evidence—coroner’s inquisition—admissibility. The coroner’s inquest over a dead person is required by statute to be sealed up and returned to the clerk of the circuit court. It thus becomes a public record of the county, and, as such, it is competent evidence in another proceeding, tending to prove any matter properly before the coroner which appears on the face of the inquest. The court does not hold that such evidence is conclusive, but only that it is competent to be considered.</p> <p>2. On the trial of an action brought on' a policy of life insurance, which contained a clause that if the assured, within three years from the date thereof, should die by any act of self-destruction whatever, whether sane or insane, the defendant, under a proper plea, offered in evidence the coroner’s inquest on the dead body of the assured, show- j ing that the latter came to his death on, etc., by a pistol shot fired byi his own hand, while laboring under a fit of temporary insanity, as tending to show the fact of suicide, which the court, on objection, excluded: Held, that the inquisition of the coroner was competent evidence, and the trial court erred in excluding it from the jury.</p>