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Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter
For the Nursing Profession
PO Box 1342 Sedona AZ 86339
(206) 718-0861
Unidentified Hospital Patient: No Duty to Locate and Notify Family, Court Says
Quick Summary: When an unidentified patient dies in the hospital (in this case from gunshot wounds) the hospital’s obligation is to notify the coroner and make the remains available to the coroner.
The coroner, not the hospital, by law has some obligation to try to locate and notify the family, and may autopsy the body for forensic evidence, or embalm the body or turn the body over to a mortician.
Under the common law, there is a right to sue for interference with a dead body. That means the family member entitled to possession of the remains can sue for emotional distress if the body is handled inappropriately or disposed of in a disrespectful or undignified manner.
However, a family member can only sue a defendant such as a mortician who has a legal obligation and control over the manner of disposal of the remains.
A hospital is allowed and required only to report and make unidentified remains available to the coroner. COURT OF APPEAL OF CALIFORNIA , 1998.
When an unidentified patient dies in the hospital, the hospital must take the steps that are mandated by law, that is, the hospital must notify the coroner and make the remains available to the coroner, according to a recent ruling from the Court of Appeal of California.
The court was not willing to create a legal precedent expanding a hospital's duty in this situation or enlarging the parameters defining when family members can sue.
The court ruled a family member, even though he was considered the legal next of kin, had no right to sue the hospital for emotional distress for not attempting to identify the patient, identify the next of kin, locate the next of kin and notify them of the patient's demise.
This was a "John Doe" brought to the emergency room by paramedics with six gunshot wounds, whom the hospital's trauma care center was not able to save.
In contrast, the court pointed out that when a patient whose identity is known is admitted to the hospital or comes in for emergency care, and the patient indicates a person to notify or identifies some next of kin, that does impose an obligation for the hospital to take reasonable measures to try to notify the indicated person or persons in the event the patient dies, so that the measures the family wants can be taken for disposal of the remains.
By taking a patient's information about whom to notify, the hospital is essentially entering into a contract with the patient to notify the designated person or next of kin, and the designated person or next of kin would have the right to sue for breach of that contract if the patient dies and they are not notified. When an unidentified patient is brought in and gives no information, then dies, no such contract exists, the court ruled. Aguirre-Alvarez v. Hospital, 79 Cal. Rptr.2d 580 (Cal. App., 1998).