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Order for new trial affirmed in suit over OC officials mistakenly telling a father and sister a family member had died

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SANTA ANA — A state appeals court Monday affirmed a lower court’s ruling ordering a new trial and overturning a $1.5 million jury verdict for a father and sister who were wrongly told by Orange County Sheriff’s Department officials that a family member had died.

Jurors in April 2022 deliberated for about three hours before awarding $1.1 million for the father of Frankie Kerrigan and $400,000 for his sister.

Kerrigan’s father, Frank Kerrigan, and sister, Carole Meikle, alleged intentional and negligent misrepresentation. Orange County Sheriff-Coroner’s Department officials wrongly informed Kerrigan’s family that he was found dead outside a Verizon store in Fountain Valley, but 17 days later, Kerrigan showed up for a visit with a family friend, who had attended Kerrigan’s funeral at Holy Family Cathedral in Orange.

It turned out the transient found dead outside the store on May 6, 2017, was 54-year-old John Dean Dickens. An officer who found the body believed it was Kerrigan, so deputy coroner David Ralsten printed off a copy of Kerrigan’s state identification and concluded it was the same person.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Theodore R. Howard later granted a new trial on the issue of damages. In the appeal, the county argued against emotional distress and the plaintiffs’ argument for intentional misrepresentation, and that Howard abused his discretion on granting a new trial.

Fourth District Court of Appeal justices found Howard “provided valid reasons to support the grant of a new trial on the negligence-based claims” and did not abuse discretion.

“They upheld taking away the jury’s verdict here, which is disappointing,” said attorney Jim DeSimone, who represented Kerrigan — who died while the case was under appeal — and Meikle.

“It appears that we will have to have another trial date, and a complicating factor is in the time since we achieved this verdict till now, Frank Kerrigan, the father, passed away,” DeSimone told City News Service.

“We’re looking into our options, but that could undermine the case… He’s not here to testify… We believe this is a miscarriage of justice. We tried a good case in Orange County, the citizens heard all the evidence, heard the clients’ testimony, listened to the clients’ testimony, felt the pain they experienced when telling the story of how emotionally distraught they were at learning their son’s and brother’s death and how emotionally distraught they continued to be not being told the truth by the sheriff’s department how this came to be.”

The attorney characterized the verdict as a “fair reflection of the harm that was caused.”

After fingerprints from the body were sent to federal databases, the results were sent back to the coroner’s computers on May 6 or May 7, according to the appellate ruling. But coroner’s officials “misconstrued the returned messages and concluded the fingerprints taken off the body did not return any hits, when a hit did come back for John Dean Dickens, not Frankie,” according to the ruling.

Dickens’ autopsy was completed on May 9, and his body was sent to a funeral home the same day. The Kerrigan family held an open-casket wake on May 11, followed by a funeral and burial the next day.

On May 23, Frank Kerrigan received a call from a family friend saying Frankie had shown up alive.

The Kerrigans said they told coroner’s officials on May 30 that Frankie was still alive. On June 1, coroner’s officials told the Kerrigans they had confirmed the body was Dickens, leading the body being exhumed on Aug. 23 and the county paying the Kerrigans $20,558.59 for the funeral expenses.

Ralsten testified during the civil trial he printed off the 2005 photo of Frankie Kerrigan from the DMV, which listed his weight at 180 pounds, but when he arrived on scene, he saw the body was that of a man who weighed 250 pounds and spotted a wheelchair nearby, but he didn’t tell anyone to follow up on the discrepancy in weight and the wheelchair, according to the ruling. But Ralsten said there were similarities such as blue eyes, same hair color and a cleft in the chin as well as the size of the nose.

When Frankie Kerrigan was 43 “he suddenly manifested symptoms of mental illness,” according to the ruling. He managed his symptoms with medication for a time but would often stop taking it, leading to issues such as losing jobs or “becoming greatly disabled and disappearing for a period of time,” according to the ruling.

After the verdicts, Howard ruled that the deputy coroners who handled the case did not “intentionally or recklessly” misrepresent the identity of the body. The judge also found “no evidence that Ralsten had an intent to defraud anyone,” according to the ruling.

The judge found the mistake did not cause “serious emotional distress” and rejected the speculation that the bodies were switched and that it was covered up.

The judge ordered a new trial in part due to doubts about Meikle’s credibility regarding her emotional distress. The ruling noted that she did not view the body during the wake and had previously stated she never feared her brother, contradicting her deposition testimony.

The appellate court ruled Howard was right to reject the county’s argument of emotional distress based on negligence. But the appellate justices noted the plaintiffs “did not receive mental health treatment,” and were happy about Frankie being alive “for a very brief time” before “immediately” hiring an attorney.

“These credibility determinations and factual findings support an inference that plaintiffs did not suffer serious emotional distress or at least serious emotional distress beyond the 17-day period before they learned Frankie was alive,” the justices stated. “In sum, the trial court’s new trial order was sufficient to disclose its reasoning and permit meaningful appellate review.”

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