We are here dealing with the effect of testimony and not its admissibility, and nothing here ruled is in conflict with the decision of the Supreme Court in Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Saul, 189 Ga. 1 (3) ( 5 S.E.2d 214). It follows, therefore, that for the purpose of determining whether the evidence in the case demanded a finding in favor of the insurer we must examine the rest of the testimony and evidence in the case. While under the terms of Section 18 of the Act of 1945 (Ga. L. 1945, pp. 236, 242; Code Ann. § 88-1118), death certificates filed under the provisions thereof are "prima facie evidence of the facts stated therein," such presumption is rebuttable, McWaters v. Employers Liability Assurance Corp., 73 Ga. App. 586 ( 37 S.E.2d 430); Davis v. Atlantic Steel Corp., 91 Ga. App. 102 ( 84 S.E.2d 839); Prudential Ins. Co. of America v. Kellar, 213 Ga. 453, supra. The certificate of death in the present case contains a contradiction which, to that extent, militates against the presumption.
QUILLIAN, J. 1. A death certificate filed under the provisions of law shall be prima facie evidence of the facts stated therein (Code, Ann. Supp., § 88-1118); and though such presumption is a rebuttable one ( McWaters v. Employers Liability Assur. Corp., 73 Ga. App. 586, 37 S.E.2d 430), it is a question for decision by the fact-finding body whether conflicting evidence introduced was sufficient to rebut such presumption. 2. Where the evidence showed an accidental injury to the employee's leg and subsequent amputation of the leg, which amputation was adjudicated, on a previous hearing, to have been compensable, and where thereafter the employee was continuously disabled from performing any work and suffered more or less continuous pain, discomfort, and disability followed by his death, it may be said that such evidence raised a presumption that his death resulted from the accidental injury to his leg, and the burden was on the employer to prove as a matter of affirmative defense that some intervening or pre-existing agency was the cause of death.