Before any lawsuit, before any insurer calls, the law has already opened a file on the death. In Texas it is called an inquest, and the family is entitled to what it finds.
Inquest. An inquest is the state’s own investigation into the cause and the circumstances of a death, and the law does not leave it to chance. A justice of the peace “shall conduct an inquest” into a death in the county when, among other cases, “the person dies an unnatural death from a cause other than a legal execution,” when “the circumstances of the death indicate that the death may have been caused by unlawful means,” when a body is found and the cause is unknown, when the person dies without a physician in attendance, and when a physician attended but cannot certify the cause and asks for one (Code of Criminal Procedure Article 49.04). A death on the road is an unnatural death. Every one of them gets an inquest, whether or not anyone will ever be charged, and the inquest is where the record of the death begins, before anyone has a side.
The medical examiner. In the largest counties the justice of the peace steps aside. “The commissioners court of any county having a population of more than 2.5 million shall establish and maintain the office of medical examiner,” and smaller counties may; in Harris County it is the Institute of Forensic Sciences. The deaths that office must investigate are listed: “when a person shall die within twenty-four hours after admission to a hospital or institution or in prison or in jail”; “when any person is killed; or from any cause dies an unnatural death, except under sentence of the law; or dies in the absence of one or more good witnesses”; when a body is found and the cause is unknown; when the circumstances “lead to suspicion that he came to his death by unlawful means”; a suicide; and a death “without having been attended by a duly licensed and practicing physician” (Article 49.25, Sections 1 and 6). The driver who dies in the emergency room an hour after a crash is on that list twice.
The autopsy. The family does not order the autopsy. The law does. A justice of the peace may consult a county health officer or a physician on whether one is needed, and may “direct a physician to perform an autopsy”; the justice must order one when “the justice determines that an autopsy is necessary to determine or confirm the nature and cause of death,” or when the district attorney, criminal district attorney or, where there is neither, the county attorney directs it, and the county pays to transport the body to where it can be done (Article 49.10). In a medical examiner county the rule is shorter: “if in the opinion of the medical examiner an autopsy is necessary,” or if the district attorney requests one, it “shall be immediately performed by the medical examiner or a duly authorized deputy” (Article 49.25, Section 9). What the autopsy finds is not only the cause of death. It is the sequence: the injuries and the order they came in, what the blood carried, whether the heart or the brain failed before the impact or because of it, and whether the person was alive when the fire reached the car.
What the record holds. A justice of the peace must make a record of every inquest, with the findings and conclusions, “any autopsy prepared in the case and all other papers of the case,” indexed and kept in the justice’s office; if an inquest hearing is held, the record also carries the names of the witnesses, a transcript of their testimony and the autopsy report (Article 49.15). A medical examiner “shall keep full and complete records properly indexed,” and those records “may not be withheld, subject to a discretionary exception under Chapter 552, Government Code,” the Public Information Act, with one carve-out: “a photograph or x-ray of a body taken during an autopsy is excepted from required public disclosure,” an exception that does not apply under a subpoena or when the person died in the custody of law enforcement (Article 49.25, Section 11). So the report is public information unless the examiner invokes one of the Act’s discretionary exceptions, and the photographs come by subpoena once the suit is filed. The examiner’s investigator is usually at the scene or the hospital before anyone has hired a lawyer, and what that investigator writes down is part of the file.
How a family gets it. In Harris County the request goes to the Institute of Forensic Sciences in writing, by email or by mail, with the case number if the family has it, the name, the date of death and the county where the death occurred, and the requester’s own name and contact information. “A PDF of an autopsy report can be emailed at no charge to a requestor that does not require a certified copy,” a printed certified copy costs ten cents a page, and the institute asks that no one pay until told the report is complete (Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences). The office also lists a family assistance coordinator. The report issues when it is complete, and in practice that usually means after the laboratory work, which is why the first weeks after a death are often spent waiting for it.
What it proves in court. The findings go onto the death certificate, and a copy of a death record “that is certified by the state registrar is prima facie evidence of the facts stated in the record” (Health and Safety Code Section 191.052). Prima facie means it comes in and it can be answered. The cause of death is the examiner’s medical conclusion. The manner, natural, accident, suicide, homicide or undetermined, is a classification for the vital-statistics file, not a verdict; a certificate that reads homicide says that one person died at the hands of another and nothing about whether a crime was committed, which is the distinction Homicide draws. The civil case still has to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that someone’s negligence caused the death, which is what Wrongful Death is about. The inquest supplies the facts. It does not decide the fault.
Why a trial lawyer reads it first. Because the autopsy answers the questions the crash report never asks. Whether the impact alone was survivable, which is the question Fire puts before any question about the fuel system. Whether a driver who crossed the center line had a stroke before the car moved, which is what The Blackout and Sudden Incapacity turn on. What the other driver’s blood carried, which Intoxication explains the law of. Which injuries came from which collision, the car against the world, the body against the car, the organs against the body, the order The Third Collision lays out, and what the pattern says about the forces, which is the reconstruction Delta-V begins from. The report also fixes the time of death, and when a person survived the crash for hours or days, the family’s claim for what that person went through is a separate claim from their own.
An inquest is the state’s own account of a death, written before anyone had a side. The family is entitled to read it, and the case is usually built on it.
The inquest: Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 49.04 (deaths requiring an inquest), art. 49.10 (autopsies and tests) and art. 49.15 (inquest record). The medical examiner: Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 49.25 (Section 1, a county with a population of more than 2.5 million; Section 6, death investigations; Section 9, autopsy; Section 11, records, the Public Information Act and the exception for autopsy photographs and x-rays). The certificate: Tex. Health & Safety Code § 191.052 (a certified copy is prima facie evidence of the facts stated in the record). The request: Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences, Autopsy Reports Requests (the request by email or mail; case number, name, date of death and county; a PDF at no charge; a printed certified copy at ten cents a page; payment only once the report is complete; the family assistance coordinator). General information, not legal advice.
