[511] Giles v. Brown, 1 Mill (S. C.) Const., 230; People v. Devine, 44 Cal., 452.
[512] Bouvier’s Law Dict., vol. 1, p. 405.
[513] Lancaster County v. Dern, 2 Grant (Pa.), 262. In this case a concussion or collision took place in a street between the sleighs of two parties, whereby a woman sustained an injury by the shaft, or some other part of one of the parties’ sleigh, striking her immediately above the eye, and penetrating the brain. Surgical aid was immediately called in, and the woman received all the care and attention that the exigencies of the case required till five days afterward, when she died in consequence of the wound received. On the sixth day the coroner held an inquest, and in this, an action to recover for his services against the county, it was held he could recover.
[514] County of Lancaster v. Mishler, 100 Pa. St., 624. In this, a suit by the coroner against the county to recover his fees, it was held that this presumption was not conclusive, and evidence was admissible to show that he acted in bad faith and knowingly without sufficient cause or reason. The Court said: “The duty of a coroner to hold an inquest rests on sound reason, on that reason which is the life of the law. It is not a power to be exercised capriciously and arbitrarily against all reason. The object of an inquest is to seek information, and obtain and secure evidence, in case of death by violence or other undue means. If there be reasonable ground to suspect it was so caused, it becomes the duty of the coroner to act. If he has no grounds for suspecting that the death was not a natural one, it is a perversion of the whole spirit of the law to compel the county to pay for such services.”
[515] County of Fayette v. Batton, 108 Pa. St., 591. It appeared in this case, that nineteen persons came to their death suddenly and almost simultaneously by an explosion of fire-damp in a coal-mine. The coroner held a separate inquest over each body at the respective homes of the deceased, qualifying the same jury separately over each body, and the inquest returned a separate finding in each case. It was held that this was the necessary and proper course to pursue under the circumstances, and that the coroner was entitled to the legal fees in each case. In Boislinieu v. Board of Co. Commissioners, 32 Mo., 375, it was held that the coroner is the sole judge as to the propriety or necessity of holding the inquest, and his action in that respect is not subject to revision by the county commissioners, and he is entitled to fees under the statute notwithstanding the verdict of the coroner’s jury discloses that the deceased died of a natural death, and not by casualty or violence.
[516] Am. & Eng. Enc. of Law, vol. 4, p. 175.
[517] Garnett v. Ferrand, 6 Barn. & Cress., 611.
[518] People v. Fitzgerald, 43 Hun (N. Y.), 46.
[519] People v. Devine, 44 Cal., 452; Commonwealth v. Hawkins, 3 Gray (Mass.), 463.
[520] People v. Fitzgerald, 105 N. Y., 146.