8-1-24 Legal Intelligencer article by Aleeza Furman, Legal Intelligencer Litigation Reporter.

“More fundamentally, before you think about a malpractice suit or a wrongful death suit, it enables somebody to have an avenue to get the judiciary involved when it comes to a point when the coroner or medical examiner are acting absolutely unreasonably,” Podraza said.

A case headed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court could give estate administrators standing to challenge faulty death certificate findings that bar them from seeking wrongful death damages and other forms of legal recovery.

The high court on Tuesday granted an appeal in a couple’s bid to remove what they contend is an incorrect finding of suicide from their daughter’s death certificate. The parents assert that the erroneous finding has created a barrier to seeking justice or restitution for their daughter’s violent death in 2011.

The case stands to establish a path for estate administrators and executors to call into question the findings of coroners and medical examiner, according to Lamb McErlane partner Joseph Podraza Jr., who represents the parents.

“More fundamentally, before you think about a malpractice suit or a wrongful death suit, it enables somebody to have an avenue to get the judiciary involved when it comes to a point when the coroner or medical examiner are acting absolutely unreasonably,” Podraza said.

Podraza contended that challenges to coroner or medical examiner findings are “far more common than you can imagine,” saying he is currently handling “at least five such matters, ranging from disagreements to challenges as to whether the death is a homicide or suicide.”

And while a death certificate denoting suicide does not outright bar an estate from pursuing a wrongful death action, it does create a significant hurdle for would-be plaintiffs to overcome.

Podraza said his clients, Joshua and Sandra Greenberg, were “elated” when they heard their appeal had been granted.

The parents had filed the underlying action seeking to compel the Philadelphia medical examiner to change his professional opinion recorded in their daughter’s death certificate. Their 27-year-old daughter, Ellen Greenberg, had been found dead in her Manayunk apartment in 2011 having sustained 20 stab wounds and multiple other injuries.

The medical examiner at first determined the death to be a homicide but later concluded it had been a suicide. The Greenbergs subsequently launched their own investigation, hiring outside experts who found indications that Ellen Greenberg’s death was a homicide.

The Greenbergs went on to file their complaint, in their capacity as administrators of the victim’s estate, against the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office seeking mandamus and declaratory relief to have their daughter’s manner of death officially recorded as unable to be determined.

The Greenbergs contended that the official finding that their daughter died by suicide barred them from pursuing legal relief through means such as a wrongful death action, a claim for damages against the Medical Examiner’s Office, or a criminal conviction of a perpetrator.

The Medical Examiner’s Office, however, contended that the parents did not have standing to seek the amendment of their daughter’s death certificate.

The trial court disagreed and allowed the action to go forward, but the office found success in an appeal to the Commonwealth Court. There, the majority of a three-judge panel ruled that the parents, as administrators of the victim’s estate, did not have sufficient direct interest in the outcome of the action to establish standing.

“To conclude that the parents’ interest is direct and immediate, we would need to assume not only the viability of future litigation, but also the evidentiary weight that a future trier of fact would give to the manner of death stated on the death certificate,” the Commonwealth Court ruled in a majority opinion authored by Judge Ellen Ceisler. “There is no reliable means of making that determination, particularly when the parents would also be free to show the trier of fact their evidence of the flaws in the MEO’s conclusions.”

The parents sought to revive their case, captioned Osbourne v. Greenberg, through their appeal to the Supreme Court.

The court granted an appeal on a question of “Whether, as an issue of statewide importance, executors and administrators of an estate have standing to challenge an erroneous finding recorded on the decedent’s death certificate where that finding constitutes a bar or material impediment to recovery of victim’s compensation, restitution or for wrongful death, as well as private criminal complaints.”

A spokesperson for the Philadelphia City Law Department, which is representing the Office of the Medical Examiner, did not respond to a request for comment.

Read the full article on Law.com / Legal Intelligencer.