North Carolina liable for medical examiner’s body swap error

In what officials called an unprecedented decision, the N.C. Industrial Commission has awarded nearly $400,000 to a grieving family because a medical examiner misidentified a corpse and sent it to the wrong funeral home. Deputy Commissioner Stephen Gheen harshly criticized a local medical examiner in Guilford County and ordered the state to pay damages for emotional and mental distress suffered when a man went to a funeral home expecting to see his sister. Instead, he saw the body of another woman. The mistake in 2008 prompted a frantic search for the body of Lorraine Young. It ended shortly before a Greensboro funeral home — unaware of the circumstances — was scheduled to cremate the woman’s body.