Say you live in the State of New York. Say further that a family member is found dead in his bed by his wife when she comes home from work on a sunny Friday afternoon in May. I assumed that an autopsy would be required, because people rarely just turn up dead. In this particular case that’s not so. His mother pitched a blue fit and nobody asked his wife (who was hysterical anyway), so the coroner and his primary-care physician signed off on “heart failure” and that was that.
What does the law say in this state?
As a related question, if you win a settlement and all the papers are signed and the judgement is awarded, but you die before you get the money, what happens? Does the widow get the money automatically, does she have to take some affirmative legal action, or is the settlement agreement voided?
I know: “get a lawyer.” I don’t have that kind of control over the situation; I’m just sort of advising when asked.
Unattended death is loosely interpreted. If a person is under medical care, dying alone at home does not automatically trigger an autopsy. Current technologies provide many ways to confirm manner of death without the invasiveness of an autopsy. From http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/7635.html
As far as payment of settlement monies go, most personal injury lawsuits are filed on behalf of both spouses so the spouse would get the settlement. In general, if a case is in final judgment, the award goes to the estate of the deceased. Any settlement agreement will take into account the age, earnings capacity and health (when diminished by reasons other than the cause of action) of the claimant. Even if a lawsuit is not settled at the time of a claimant’s death, the claimant’s estate can continue the lawsuit on their behalf.
Case in point: Two sisters (friends of mine) were allowed to continue their mother’s personal injury negligence lawsuit for a broken hip incurred by falling out of bed in hospital. They accepted a settlement on the advice of counsel, and the amount of the award was determined by the degree of hospital negligence, mitigated by the woman’s age (75), earnings capacity (zero), state of health (she had terminal cancer), pain and suffering (not sure if anything was awarded for this as claimant had died) and quality of life (she was in the end stages of the disease).
As to your second question, if a person dies before a legal claim has settled, it almost always would go to the estate of the decedent, and the Surrogate’s Court (the probate court in New York) would have to appoint an executor or adminstrator to administer the estate and distribute funds according to the will or intestacy laws.
Minor aside: I’ve had a number of patients end up found dead at home. Sometimes days after death. The local ME would call me, ask if I could reasonably conclude a cause of death based on their medical histories, and ask if I felt an autopsy was needed. In the case of little old ladies with bad hearts and lungs, or even middle-aged men with high blood pressure and lots of other cardiac risk factors, I’d tell them that if they were lacking external physical evidence of foul play, “heart failure” as a diagnosis worked for me.
This man was in very poor health, and at least a few of his problems were more or less self-inflicted. Given what you’ve told me I can see why they didn’t need an autopsy. The suddeness of it was a shock but it wasn’t really a surprise, if you know what I mean.
There may also be more outstanding legal issues with this guy than I originally thought. He made some poor life decisions as a young and then spent the rest of his life attempting to evade the consequences. His wife, on the other hand, is a wonderful person and I hope she doesn’t end up paying for his mistakes.
Lawyer, lawyer, lawyer. I’m going to beat that like a drum.
I know I could have looked this stuff up myself, but I’ve been somewhat busy. I really appreciate the help. Thanks again.
When my father-in-law died, there was a nurse’s assistant and seven or so family members present, yet they put his time of death at the time the actual nurse showed up to pronounce him. Go figure. It was nearly five hours later.
