Lawsuit alleges dead baby was treated as ‘bio-waste’
A mother is suing the Los Angeles County coroner for allegedly disposing of her dead baby daughter as “bio-waste.”
The lawsuit, filed by Yolanda Garnett in Los Angeles County Superior Court this week, accuses the county, the coroner and the county mortuary of general negligence. The suit seeks more than $25,000 in damages.
The complaint does not say how the baby died or how old it was, and the mother’s attorney declined Thursday to elaborate.
According to the suit, the coroner performed an autopsy on Garnett’s infant daughter in December. Garnett requested the girl’s body be returned to her for burial after the autopsy.
When Garnett asked what had happened to the baby, county officials told her the infant’s body had been discarded as “bio-waste,” according to court papers.
The coroner’s office had no record of Garnett or her daughter, said Lt. John Kades of the county Department of Coroner.
Under state law, death certificates are issued only for fetuses and newborn or stillborn infants that weigh 400 grams or have gestated for 20 weeks or more, Kades said. Otherwise, the fetus is considered not viable outside the womb and would be classified by hospitals as bio-waste. The coroner’s office would consider fetuses of that size and development to be specimens, rather than bio-waste, Kades said. Garnett’s attorney, J. Barry Moses, said she didn’t want to comment on the suit. “The complaint speaks for itself,” Moses said.
susannah.rosenblatt
@latimes.com
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