Defense Gets Right to Examine Gathers Samples : Court: Cause of death given by coroner’s office is challenged by parties sued by family.

Speculating that the Los Angeles coroner’s autopsy report on Hank Gathers might be wrong, defendants in the Gathers’ family lawsuit successfully petitioned in Los Angeles County Superior Court Thursday to obtain tissue and fluid samples of Gathers for re-examination and to check some things they say were missed.

In a declaration attached to the motion to subpoena the coroner’s office for the samples, defense attorney John Aitelli said: “. . . after obtaining pathology slides from the coroner’s office and having them reviewed by leading experts around the country, the conclusion of the coroner’s office is thought to be incorrect.”

Gathers, a Loyola Marymount basketball player, collapsed March 4 while playing in a West Coast Conference tournament game and died 1 hour 40 minutes later. The autopsy report listed the cause of death as idiopathic cardiomyopathy with interstitial fibrosis, or, an unknown heart muscle inflammation with scar tissue.

Defense attorneys declined to say how they reached their conclusion that the coroner’s report could be wrong or what they speculate the cause of death may be. However, defense attorney Ken Mueller said that they need Gathers’ tissue and fluid samples to re-examine and also to test “some things that have not been checked.”

Mueller plans to use a laboratory used by the International Olympic Committee to examine Gathers’ urine and blood samples. Muller and Aitelli represent Dr. Charles Swerdlow, a cardiologist who treated Gathers.

Bob Dambacher, spokesman for the Coroners Office, said he did not know what Mueller was referring to when he said there were some tests or things that had not been checked.

“We have nothing to hide, “ Dambacher said. “We concluded Gathers died of cardiomyopathy and that is our opinion. They are welcome to do whatever tests they want.”

Dambacher also said that Gathers’ toxicology report--for drug poisoning--turned up nothing.

This was one of several motions heard Thursday before Judge William C. Beverly Jr., in connection with a $32.5-million wrongful death suit filed against Loyola Marymount and 13 other defendants by Gathers’ mother, Lucille, his brothers, Derrick and Charles and an aunt, Carole Livingston.

The original suit that was filed in April by Bruce Fagel, attorney for the Gathers family, listed six causes of action. But after court hearings, only two causes are intact, with two others sent back to Fagel for revision and resubmission and one cause thrown out.

The court is expected to hear a motion next Thursday by the defendants to deny Lucille Gathers the right to sue for wrongful death, the strongest cause of Fagel’s suit. To sue for this cause, Lucille Gathers must prove she was financially dependant on her son at the time of his death. Without that proof, Gathers’ 7-year-old son, Aaron Crump, is the only legitimate heir allowed to sue for wrongful death.

The court denied the Gathers family the right to sue for prospective economic gain had Gathers lived and played in the NBA. The court concluded that if Gathers had lived, his medical condition probably would have excluded him from playing professional basketball.

Causes of action that stand so far are: failure to disclose (information to Gathers about his condition), and intentional infliction of emotional distress, which charges that several defendants did nothing of a medical nature to help Gathers after he collapsed on March 4, causing the family, who were courtside with Gathers, emotional pain.

Attorneys for Crump and the estate of Gathers also have filed a wrongful death suit against the same defendants but for an unspecified amount of money. Both suits have been consolidated, and, barring a settlement, will go to trial in September.