New Orleans family awarded $50,000 after coroner’s office failed to identify loved one in timely manner
By Erin Lowrey
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NEW ORLEANS (WDSU) — An appellate court has quintupled damages awarded to a New Orleans family who accused the Orleans Parish Coroner’s Office of not identifying their loved one in a timely manner.
WDSU Investigates reported on the death of Benjamin Pfantz back in May.
Pfantz’s parents alleged in a lawsuit that although his body was sent to the morgue, staff denied that his body was there.
For eight months, his parents searched. After a call from his mother, it was revealed by an employee that they did have his body.
WDSU learned Pfantz had been cremated without the family’s knowledge.
In the Pfantz case, Judge Kern Reese noted that NOPD “obtained fingerprints and provided the coroner with Benjamin’s date of birth, state ID number, but misspelled his last name, Pfantz, as Peantz.”
He found the coroner’s failure to conduct a further investigation to identify Benjamin as “reckless and outrageous misconduct.”
The appellate court upheld this ruling following an appeal, and quintupled the damages awarded to the family to $50,000, according to court records.
In May, Orleans Parish Coroner Dwight McKenna said his office was provided the wrong name by police, resulting in the delay of Pfantz being identified.
“When you look at the facts of this case, that we started with a bad name, the police department gave us incorrect information,” McKenna said. “He disparaged me personally and the people in my office. We are appealing his decision. I disagree with everything he said. I don’t know what his motives were, what we were provided in that case, with a bad name to start with. He’s not God, he’s not the pope, he’s not infallible. That opinion was a disgrace.”
The judgment said despite McKenna’s office blaming the New Orleans Police Department, his office “acted with callous indifferences” to the Pfantzes, denying them closure.
“The Coroner’s Office failed to take reasonable measures to correctly identify him and notify his next of kin. For these reasons, we amend the general damage award to each of the Pfantzes to $25,000.00, for a total award of $50,000.00,” the court records read.
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