Jul 16, 2008 8:49 am US/Pacific
Woman Settles Suit Over Disposal Of Fetus
LOS ANGELES
A woman has settled a lawsuit against Los Angeles County alleging that the Coroner's office wrongly disposed of the body of her infant daughter as "bio-waste" after she had an abortion.
Yolanda Garnett, 36, maintained that she asked the Coroner's office to return her daughter's body fetus burial after an autopsy was performed, but was told it was deemed bio-waste and thrown out.
Garnett underwent an abortion on Feb. 20, 2006, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center when her fetus was 19 weeks old, according to court papers filed by attorneys for the county.
Because the second of two autopsies showed the fetus' death was caused by an abortion, a death certificate could not be created and a burial or cremation permit could not be issued, the county's court papers state.
"Under those circumstances the remains could not be released to the next of kin, so the fetal remains were disposed of as a specimen per Department of Coroner policy," the county's court papers state.
The terms of the settlement were not divulged in a notice of settlement document.
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