A jury in Orange County, California, awarded a family $1.5 million in damages after the coroner’s office gave the family of a homeless person the wrong remains, despite the man being alive.
The family of Frankie Kerrigan, a 62-year-old homeless man with schizophrenia, was awarded $1.5 million of its $5 million ask, with $1.1 million going to 86-year-old father Frank Kerrigan and $400,000 to sister Carole Meikle. The lawsuit, filed with the Orange County Superior Court in 2017, sought damages for emotional distress and negligence from Chapman Funeral Homes and the county, according to the lawsuit, obtained by NBC Los Angeles.
“This has been an injustice to our family from the very beginning. We have fought this legal fight for five years, and we are grateful to the Orange County jurors who recognized the injustice. We are hopeful this verdict sends a message so this never happens to any family anywhere,” Frank Kerrigan said in a statement to the Washington Examiner.
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The coroner’s office committed negligence and intentional misrepresentation after it claimed to have identified the homeless man through his fingerprints, the jurors found in the verdict that came two days after the cases were presented. He was identified through an old DMV photo from 11 years ago, and a Fountain Valley police officer believed the man was named Frankie Kerrigan, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The money could help the family take care of Frankie Kerrigan, said James DeSimone, the attorney representing the family.
“The jury not only found that the Orange County Coroner’s Office was negligent, but that its coroners made intentional misrepresentations to the Kerrigan family,” DeSimone said in a statement shared with the Washington Examiner. “The jury’s verdict speaks volumes — Orange County should treat everyone with care and concern when dealing with issues as important as life and death. And if the county institutes a new fingerprint system, make sure you provide training and make sure your coroners understand how the system works.”
During the trial, the coroner’s office said it had run the prints through its live scan fingerprint system, which released a six-digit code identifying the man as John Dickens. However, no one double-checked that the name in the system was the one the office had because employees were allegedly improperly trained and did not realize the importance of the number, according to Mercury News.
When Frank Kerrigan got the call of his son’s death, he asked whether he should go identify the body, but he was told it was unnecessary because the office verified the body through his fingerprints, the suit claimed. But when the family received Frankie Kerrigan’s belongings, the father said he noticed his son’s watch and a black case were missing.
Additionally, the casket was briefly opened, but Kerrigan was too overtaken with grief to realize the body was not his son’s.
Eleven days after the funeral, Kerrigan received a call that his son was still alive and standing on a friend’s front porch. When notified of the mistake, the coroner’s office publicly apologized for the error.
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Kerrigan said he pursued the lawsuit so the same mistake would not happen to anyone else. Norm Watkins, who represented the county, admitted the mistake but said there had been no intention of deceiving the plaintiffs.
Frankie Kerrigan is stable and staying in a hotel room, his family said.
