Lab Accused of Homicide in Pap Smear Case Pleads No Contest : Health: Chem-Bio to pay $20,000 fine in women’s deaths. But verdict postponed and appeal planned.

A medical laboratory accused of reckless homicide for misreading the Pap smears of two women who later died of cervical cancer entered no-contest pleas Monday and agreed to pay a $20,000 fine, avoiding trial.

As part of the settlement between Chem-Bio Corp. and prosecutors, Superior Court Judge David Hansher did not immediately enter a verdict against the company and allowed the lab to appeal certain elements of the case, including the basic question of whether a corporation can be charged with homicide.

During an appearance in a state court Monday, lawyers for the lab entered a no-contest plea and said the company would pay the maximum fine--$10,000 on each of two counts. But they said they would file an appeal questioning whether the statute of limitations in the case had run out by the time the charges were filed.

Terms of the plea agreement were announced as the case was set to go to trial. Chem-Bio, of Oak Creek, Wis., was charged with reckless homicide earlier this year in the deaths of Karin Smith, 29, and Dolores Geary, 40.

Milwaukee County Dist. Atty. E. Michael McCann said he believes that it is the first criminal homicide prosecution for a misreading of Pap smears. “I’m hoping that’s read as a message by any lab that reads Pap smears that it’s got to be done carefully,” he said.

The husbands of both victims were in the courtroom Monday. Peter Smith said his wife “would have been disappointed. . . . No one’s being held accountable.” Karin Smith had asked before she died that McCann pursue criminal charges as well.

Defense attorney Martin E. Kohler said an appeals court ruling in favor of the company could nullify the no-contest plea. “We decided to file the plea to avoid a lengthy and inappropriate criminal trial,” he said.

Geary, a mother of three from Oak Creek, Wis., died in 1993. Smith, a Nashotah, Wis., accountant, died March 8.

The women’s families won settlements totaling $10 million after suing Chem-Bio and their health maintenance organization, Family Health Plan.

At an inquest earlier this year, experts testified that Pap smears--gynecological tests for cervical cancer--had repeatedly shown obvious signs of the disease, but the cancer went undiagnosed for years.

In both cases, the cancer tests had been sent to Chem-Bio and read by the same technician.

McCann filed charges April 12 against Chem-Bio. At that time, he announced that the technician and the doctor who oversaw the lab had signed agreements freeing them from criminal charges, as long as they abide by conditions he set on their professional conduct for the next six years. In signing the agreements, the two did not admit to any crime.