Davila

The issue in this case is whether a coroner owes a duty to a decedent’s children to attempt with reasonable diligence to notify the person responsible for the interment of the decedent’s remains before disposing of the body. We hold that he does.

Facts

Robert Davila and Angelina Williamson (collectively Davila) sued the County of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the Los Angeles County Coroner (collectively the Coroner) for damages on a negligence theory, alleging the following facts: On July 11, 1993, their father, Freddie Davila, was found dead in a car parked on Paramount Boulevard, in the City of Paramount. Decedent was transported to a hospital, where he was formally pronounced dead, but the Coroner failed “to make an adequate or reasonable attempt to locate any relatives” and, on August 11, decedent’s body was cremated. Decedent had told Davila that he was going to take an extended trip and it was thus not until December 1993, that Davila became concerned that he hadn’t heard from his father, at which time Davila filed a missing person’s report and then learned that his father had died and that his body had been cremated. As a result,…