# Death Certificate = Legally Dead? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 20, 2017, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-certificate-legally-dead/789450 "2017-06-20T17:16:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2017, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-certificate-legally-dead/789450/1 "2017-06-20T17:16:07Z")
[Man whose heart was still beating issued death certificate: suit](http://nypost.com/2017/06/18/man-whos-heart-was-still-beating-issued-death-certificate-suit/) > [@](#): > > New York-Presbyterian Hospital issued a death certificate for a Brooklyn man whose heart was still beating, and his family is fighting to get the document withdrawn in what experts call an “unprecedented” legal battle. > [@](#): > > They want a judge to withdraw Nakar’s death certificate so they can seek insurance reimbursement for his current treatment. Insurance companies won’t pay to treat a dead man. > [@](#): > > Hospitals can electronically enter death certificates into the city system and typically a funeral-home director would complete the personal information on the form before the city Health Department reviews it, an agency spokesman said. So I’m curious about the legal status of death certificates? Does the issuing of a death certificate mean that the person is dead for all legal purposes? Or is it just that it’s hard to prove this to an insurance company? What about other legal aspects of being alive? If this person comes back to life, do they get to keep their possessions, or does it all belong to their heirs? If they commit a crime, can they be prosecuted? And so on? [I have a very vague recollection that there may have been some discussion of this in a prior thread.] ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2017, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-certificate-legally-dead/789450/2 "2017-06-20T17:43:45Z")
Pertinent sentence left out. This wasn’t a clerical error or an oversight. > [@](#): > > Over the objections of his devout Orthodox Jewish family, doctors declared Nakar **brain-dead** and on May 31 issued a death certificate for him This person is not coming back from brain death. > [@](#): > > Today, both the legal and medical communities in the US use “brain death” as a legal definition of death, allowing a person to be declared legally dead even if life support equipment keeps the body’s metabolic processes working.[ > **[Brain death](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_death)** > > Brain death is the permanent, irreversible, and complete loss of brain function, which may include cessation of involuntary activity necessary to sustain life. It differs from persistent vegetative state, in which the person is alive and some autonomic functions remain. It is also distinct from comas as long as some brain and bodily activity and function remain, and it is also not the same as the condition locked-in syndrome. A differential diagnosis can medically distinguish these Brain death ... ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2017, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-certificate-legally-dead/789450/3 "2017-06-20T17:58:01Z")
Yup, brain death is the current standard. See Mary Roach’s _Stiff_ for an interesting discussion of how our views of death, and the points at which society is willing to acknowledge that someone is truly gone, have changed over the centuries. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2017, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-certificate-legally-dead/789450/4 "2017-06-21T01:34:38Z")
Whether you’re dead or not is a matter of fact, not law. You’re not dead because a death certificate has been issued; rather, a death certificate is issued because you’re dead. The purpose of a death certificate is evidentiary; a death certificate is evidence that you are dead, but it can be rebutted by better evidence showing that you are, in fact, alive. So, death certificates don’t alter the facts; they just create evidentiary and administrative presumptions about what the facts are. ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2017, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-certificate-legally-dead/789450/5 "2017-06-21T02:11:08Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > Whether you’re dead or not is a matter of fact, not law. You’re not dead because a death certificate has been issued; rather, a death certificate is issued because you’re dead. > > The purpose of a death certificate is evidentiary; a death certificate is evidence that you are dead, but it can be rebutted by better evidence showing that you are, in fact, alive. > > So, death certificates don’t alter the facts; they just create evidentiary and administrative presumptions about what the facts are. In Ohio , the status of “deceased” in thier births deaths marraiges register can only be reversed within three years of it being first entered. If you are a zombie for three years in Ohio, you are zombie until you actually die. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2017, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-certificate-legally-dead/789450/6 "2017-06-21T12:58:52Z")
Fortunately, that doesn’t come up very often. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2017, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-certificate-legally-dead/789450/7 "2017-06-21T13:12:34Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > Pertinent sentence left out. This wasn’t a clerical error or an oversight. > > … > > This person is not coming back from brain death. Reminds me of the case of [Jahi McMath](http://www.docbastard.net/2017/04/jahi-mcmath-update.html). Three and a half years later and her family is still playing with the corpse. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2017, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-certificate-legally-dead/789450/8 "2017-06-21T13:32:42Z")
I don’t get the first three responses here. The question is not whether brain death is death or not. The question is what the legal status is of the death certificate. The fact that these people are suing to have the hospital reverse the death certificate implies that this is the crucial issue. If it’s just a matter of whether the guy is truly dead or not, then they should be suing the insurance companies or whoever else is treating the guy as dead. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2017, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-certificate-legally-dead/789450/9 "2017-06-22T01:20:40Z")
Look at it this way: suppose that, due to a clerical error, your death is registered at whatever office handles these things in your jurisdiction. This is wrong; it is in fact a different Fotheringay-Phipps who has died. Before the error is corrected, and indeed before either you or I even become aware that your death has been registered, I shoot you dead. If charged with some variety of homicide, can I have the charge dismissed on the basis that, as you were already dead at the time, I cannot have killed you? It defies common sense to suggest that I could secure this outcome. So, no, the issue of a death certificate does not mean that you are “legally dead for all purposes”. The issue of a death certificate is evidence that you are dead, but it’s in principle possible to lead other evidence tending to show that you’re _not_ dead. My guess is that the plaintiffs in the case mentioned in the OP _could_ sue the insurers demanding treatment on the basis that, the death certificate notwithstanding, the patient is alive. But the existence of the death certificate is definitely an evidentiary problem for them, and the tactic of suing to have the certificate revoked may seem to them the better course. It’s possible there’s a tactical consideration here. If you sue the insurer directly to compel them to provide treatment, the insurer has a large financial interest in establishing that they are not obliged to provide treatment. But if your action is to get an official record corrected, the defendant is presumably the state agency charged with keeping the record, and they don’t have the same financial interest. They are relatively disinterested in the question of whether you are actually dead or not; they just want to get the answer right. If you can persuade them that brain death does not equal death, at least in this case, and get them to revoke the certificate, you then have a much stronger case against the insurer. ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2017, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-certificate-legally-dead/789450/10 "2017-06-22T17:26:08Z")
My office once had an immigration case in which a woman’s husband disappeared, and the only part of him that was ever found was his foot. He was declared dead, and a death certificate was issued. The woman remarried and filed for a green card for her new husband. Part of the requirements for applying for a green card for a spouse is documenting that any prior marriages have been legally terminated, either by divorce/annulment or death of a spouse. Believe it or not, in spite of the submission of a death certificate for Husband #1, USCIS requested addiitonal evidence that the rest of him was in fact dead, not just his foot. The mind reels. (It wasn’t my case, so I never found out how it ended.) **Eva Luna** , Immigration Paralegal (Remind me again why I do this for a living?)