LOS ANGELES – A mother has sued the county coroner, claiming her dead baby was disposed as "bio-waste."
Yolanda Garnett accuses the county, the coroner and the county mortuary of general negligence and is seeking more than $25,000 in damages according to the suit, filed this week in Los Angeles County Superior Court.
The suit states the coroner carried out an autopsy on Garnett's infant daughter in December, but when Garnett asked for the girl's body to be returned for burial, county officials told her the infant's body had been discarded as "bio-waste."
Lt. John Kades of the county Department of Coroner said the office had no record of Garnett or her daughter.
The suit does not say how old the baby was or how it died.
Kades said that 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. If the fetus is considered not viable outside the womb it would be classified by hospitals as bio-waste.
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