# Stauffer v. Susquehanna Collieries Co.

> Superior Court of Pennsylvania · December 12, 1934 · 116 Pa. Super. 277

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/3862631

## Case

- **Full name:** Stauffer, Appellant, v. Susquehanna Collieries Company
- **Court:** Superior Court of Pennsylvania
- **Decided:** December 12, 1934
- **Citations:** 116 Pa. Super. 277; 176 A. 740; 1935 Pa. Super. LEXIS 290
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Keller
- **Judges:** Tkexler, Keller, Cunningham, Baldrige, Stadtfeld, Parker, James
- **Cited by:** 9 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/3862631

## Opinion text

Dissenting Opinion by
Keller, J.
I would reverse the judgment and reinstate the award of the board.
The evidence shows that the company’s physician, Dr. Cook, who testified at the hearing that, in his opinion, Stauffer’s death was due to apoplexy, on July 20, 1929, four days after the death, prepared, in his own handwriting, and swore to, a proof of death for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in which he stated that the cause of death was ‘drowning,’ and that it was ‘accidental.’ At the hearing, Dr. Cook gave no explanation of this affidavit, which was offered and received in evidence on behalf of the claimant.
This evidence, together with the testimony of the undertaker that when he embalmed the body air bubbles were coming from the deceased’s nostrils, and water, or a liquid like it, continued to run from his mouth and nose,—which are well known indications of death by drowning, but not of apoplexy—and that to overcome this he had used a trocar and extracted between a quart and a half and two quarts of mixed fluid or liquid, with a little blood in it, was sufficient, in my opinion, to support the board’s finding of fact of accidental drowning; and if so, neither the court below nor this court can legally disturb it.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/3862631. Public record. Not legal advice.