31 N.Y.S. 865 | The Superior Court of the City of New York and Buffalo | 1895
The condition of the policy on which the defendant relies for a defense provides that “any medical adviser of the association shall be permitted to examine the person or body of the insured, in respect to any alleged injury or cause of death, when and as often
The defendant’s counsel frankly admitted at the trial that the right to examine asserted under the policy was to disinter the
The reason assigned by the defendant for this extraordinary demand is that by one of the conditions of the policy it is provided that the insurance “shall not extend to injuries of which there is no visible-mark, or cover accidental injuries, or death resulting from or caused,, directly or indirectly, wholly or in part, by hernia, fits, vertigo,, somnambulism, or disease in any form”; and that it was the right of the defendant to dissect the body in expectation of finding some trace of disease which under this provision might exempt it from the payment of the loss claimed. The answer to this demand is that the policy gives no right to the autopsy claimed, and the law will not tolerate it for experimental purposes, simply to aid such a defense. No case has been called to our attention in which any such demand was sustained. Claflin v. Insurance Co., 110 U. S. 81, 3 Sup. Ct. 507; Gross v. Insurance Co., 14 Ins. Law J. 158; Insurance Co. v. Maackens, 38 N. J. Law, 564; Weide v. Insurance Co., 1 Dill. 441, Fed. Cas. No. 17;358,—cited by the defendant,—relate to the right of an insurance company to examine the insured pursuant to a condition of the policy concerning the circumstances of the fire and the manner of arriving at the amount of loss, and contain nothing relative to the propositions involved here. In Whitehouse v. Insurance Co., 7 Ins. Law J. 26, Fed.
Many of these principles as to the sanctity of the grave find support in authoritative decisions. Meagher v. Driscoll, 99 Mass. 281; Weld v. Walker, 130 Mass. 422; Com. v. Cooley, 10 Pick. 37; Wynkoop v. Wynkoop, 42 Pa. St. 293; Pierce v. Cemetery, 10 R. I. 227; State v. Wilson, 94 N. C. 1015; State v. McClure, 4 Black. 328; McNamee v. People, 31 Mich. 473; Kanavan’s Case, 1 Me. 226; Reg. v. Sharpe, Dears & B. Cr. Cas. 160, 7 Cox, Cr. Cas. 214; Ehlen v.