Shareholder Prevails for Client Before Pa. Supreme Court
January, 22, 2009 – Center Valley, Pennsylvania – Douglas J. Smillie, Shareholder and Chair of the firm's Litigation Section, recently secured a significant victory for a client in a case argued before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The case involved the interpretation of a provision of Pennsylvania's Coroner's Act which requires that coroners make their official records and papers available for public inspection. When the firm's client, a local daily newspaper, sought autopsy reports relating the suspicious death of a police officer, Lehigh County's coroner refused to make the report available. The newspaper took the issue to Court, and was successful in obtaining an order directing the Coroner to make the records public. The coroner appealed the ruling to the Commonwealth Court, which sided with him, finding that an autopsy report is not an official record. The newspaper pressed the case before the Supreme Court, which issued a ruling on January 22, 2009. In Penn Jersey Advance v. Grim, the Court reversed the decision of the Commonwealth Court, ruling that autopsy reports are "official records" of the coroner which must be made available for public inspection under law.
Fitzpatrick Lentz & Bubba, P.C., is a full-service law firm providing quality legal services in real estate, land use, business, commercial litigation, health care, estate planning & taxation, employment, bankruptcy, family law and related areas.
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