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The worst has happened. Someone that you care about deeply has passed away. And now you're
being asked whether you should agree to an autopsy. My name is Rhonda Baker-Debevec.
I'm a wrongful death lawyer here in Cleveland, Ohio. And I'm here today to talk to you about
the very difficult decision that you and your family may be facing right now. And that is
whether you should agree to do an autopsy or ask for one or even try to insist on one?
So whether you personally decide to get an autopsy for your loved one, at the end of
the day it is a deeply personal decision. Obviously, autopsies are very intrusive. For
some people it's against their religious belief to have an autopsy performed. And I'm certainly
not here today to talk about those types of personal issues. Nor am I here today to talk
about autopsies in the context of a criminal situation where there's been a suspicious
death, homicide is suspected. I'm also not here to talk about the research benefits that
can be achieved and were achieved when autopsies were performed pretty routinely in hospitals.
Rather today, what I'm here to talk about is what role does an autopsy play in the civil
lawsuit context? In a potential, future civil lawsuit? So one of the things you may want
to consider is what information could you hope to obtain or might be provided during
an autopsy? And while there's a whole host of things, information that autopsies can
provide, I'm mainly going to talk to you about the two main ones that I deal with on a regular
basis which is the cause of death and the toxicology results. As a wrongful death lawyer,
one of the questions that has to be answered -- in every wrongful death case -- is why
did the person pass away? What was the actual cause of death? There are certainly situations
where the cause of death really isn't in question. Where it's a catastrophic trucking collision
with a young healthy person, clearly the cause of death was the traumatic injuries. In that
instance, an autopsy may or may not be performed. And from a civil lawsuit aspect, we don't
really need the autopsy to establish why that person passed away. But in the medical malpractice
context, cause of death is often highly disputed. The person came in to the hospital with at
least an acute condition, something that needed to be treated at that time. And usually, the
patient came in with a whole host of chronic conditions or other medical diagnosis or illnesses
that come with that patient. Some of those underlying -- what they call underlying medical
conditions, their medical history -- some of those things could be potentially fatal.
Heart conditions, cancer diagnosis, things like that. So if you are suspecting that something
might have happened at the hospital, something might have gone wrong, that there was a mistake
or an error, one of the things you might want to think about is gee if I do decide to pursue
this are they going to try and blame my loved one's death on their cancer? Or on their heart
condition? If that's the type of situation that you're contemplating, the autopsy could
provide answers to those questions. The autopsy could tell you -- and potentially a jury later
down the road -- why in fact the person passed away. The other situation is toxicology results.
So maybe the cause of death isn't at issue but for instance in the trucking collision
there might be an allegation that your loved one's driving was erratic because they were
impaired by other drugs and alcohol. So an autopsy provides some evidence as to whether
that's true or not true. It's more effective when it's done closer in time. It's more effective
if it's done before embalming. You know, there's a lot of information out there about when
autopsies are actually required. The short answer is they're usually not. But the bottom
line is if you're considering it you should say yes if they ask you -- if you're comfortable
doing that -- because of the information it could provide. My name is Rhonda Baker-Debevec.
I'm a wrongful death lawyer here in Cleveland, Ohio and I thank you for listening during
this very difficult time.