New Jersey Court in a Landmark Decision Prevents Chrysler and Honeywell from Forcing Autopsy on a Mesothelioma Victim

New Jersey Appellate Division affirms a prior decision denying Chrysler and Honeywell the right to compel an autopsy on the body of LPK’s client Harold St. John, who died of mesothelioma on February 28, 2009, and whose casket was removed from his gravesite four days later. His widow and family will finally be able to bury him after fourteen days.

TRENTON, New Jersey, March 18, 2009 - Ending a tension-fraught, gut-wrenching two weeks during which a widow and her family were barred by court order from burying her husband, a victim of mesothelioma, New Jersey Appellate Division today affirmed a lower court’s ruling¹ and denied an attempt by Chrysler and Honeywell to force an autopsy against the widow's religious objections.

Finding that the autopsy was unlikely to uncover evidence of any significance, the Appellate Division affirmed a Middlesex County New Jersey Superior Court’s decision that denied the auto giants the right to compel a post-mortem on the body of Harold St. John, who died on February 28, 2009, from mesothelioma.

The family’s lawyer Moshe Maimon, a mesothelioma attorney at Levy Phillips & Konigsberg, LLP, released the following statement: “This is a victory for the rights of mesothelioma victims. Chrysler and Honeywell put the St. John family through this nightmare when - as the Court found - an autopsy was unlikely to yield any significant evidence. We are relieved that Harry St. John can finally rest in peace. Chrysler, Honeywell and other auto parts manufacturers are named in a civil lawsuit filed last year by the late St. John and his wife, Diane. Both sides in the case had already stipulated that Mr. St. John died from mesothelioma when the auto parts manufacturers made their autopsy demand.”

Other remaining defendants in the St. John lawsuit include Carlisle Companies, Inc., Bosch Braking System, Maremont Corp., Standard Motor Products, and National Gasket.

Harold St. John was 67 years old when he died of mesothelioma. According to the complaint, he contracted the deadly cancer from asbestos exposure at his father's Jersey City auto repair shop. St. John had worked full and part-time at Connie's Auto Repair, in Jersey City, which was started by his grandfather in 1900.

When Middlesex County Superior Court Judge Phillip Lewis Paley denied the previous autopsy request, he noted that the auto giants' motion to compel an autopsy in the civil case was a case of first impression in New Jersey, stating that "civility will not permit us to desecrate the body of a deceased for reasons unrelated to those set forth in the [New Jersey] autopsy statute." According to Moshe Maimon, no New Jersey court had ever been asked to compel an autopsy in more than two decades of asbestos litigation.

After Judge Paley originally denied the motion by Chrysler and Honeywell, the auto parts giants then obtained the stay of burial from the Appellate Division.

On March 4, 2009, the John family left Spotswood, New Jersey, graveside services with St. John's casket poised to be lowered into the grave. Chrysler and Honeywell's stay of burial was served on the funeral director who instead returned the body to the mortuary where it has remained, according to Moshe Maimon.

In granting the stay on March 4, 2009, the Appellate Division remanded the case back to Judge Paley for further hearings. Even though Chrysler and Honeywell had already obtained pleural tissue from the site of Mr. St. John's mesothelioma, they claimed they needed an autopsy to analyze additional bodily tissue including those from the victim’s lungs.

After three days of testimony Judge Paley ruled that the auto parts manufacturers again failed to show any significant evidentiary value of additional tissue to be sought, ruling that such samples would merely be cumulative and that the family's rights dominate.

After the remand, the Appellate Division had ordered both sides to submit additional briefing. The lawyers on both sides filed them by the Monday, March 16, 2009, deadline and the issue was finally decided today. The Court found that Chrysler and Honeywell failed to establish that "a limited autopsy would yield results that are evidentially significant in terms of the pending trial."

"The St. John family will now have its day in Court against the companies responsible for causing Mr. St. John's mesothelioma death," Moshe Maimon said, "I hope no other family in New Jersey or elsewhere in the U.S. has to endure the uncertainty and anguish that the St. Johns experienced over the past two weeks."

For over a quarter of a century, mesothelioma lawyers at Levy Phillips & Konigsberg, LLP, have been among the pioneers of asbestos litigation in America. The firm’s attorneys have been recognized as nationwide leaders in representing the rights of mesothelioma victims and their families. Their clients have received some of the largest mesothelioma compensation verdicts in the country.

For more information about this or other mesothelioma lawsuits, please contact Levy Phillips & Konigsberg, LLP, at 212-605-6300 or 1-800-MESOLAW (1-800-637-6529), 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

¹ See attached a scanned copy of the court's decision.

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