"I have to bury my husband again"

[rickaren]

Mar 7, 2009 11:57 am
GRAVE ROBBERS: Chrysler Subpoenas Body At Funeral

The Family Of Harold St. John Is Outraged After Automobile Company Prevents Burial At Very Last Second

Daughter: "Chrysler's Kicking Us When We're Down"



Harold St. John was dead a week and in the process of being buried at a New Jersey cemetery when Chrysler subpoenaed his body so that more tests could be done to see how he died. His family is outraged.



Denise St. John is widow whose husband has been dead since last Saturday, but his grave is still empty. She is livid.

"I have to bury my husband again," she told CBS 2 HD in her daughter's Cranbury, N.J. home Friday night.

"Wouldn't you be angry if you had to bury a loved one again?"

Harold St. John's remains are the object of a tug-of-war in a lawsuit over his fatal asbestos-related illness. The 67-year-old retired airline employee died believing his mesothelioma was caused by the automobile brake linings he installed at his father's auto shop in the late 1950s and early '60s. He sued both Honeywell, and Chrysler and the lawsuit was due to got to trial this coming Monday, March 9.

However, his sudden death on Feb. 28 meant a delay in trial, but the family was unprepared for the additional price they'd have to pay. Chrysler went to court demanding access to the body for tissue tests, and managed to get a court order the day of his funeral to prevent his burial.

The problem is the court order came down while the funeral was already in progress. The family sat through a Catholic rite of Christian burial, rode to Holy Cross Cemetery in Jamesburg and prayed graveside expecting that the casket bearing Harold's body would lowered to its final resting place.

As it turned out a process server had been sent to observe the funeral and once the mourners left the grave he served the funeral director with papers demanding the body be brought back to his funeral home. The idea of it still outrages surviving son Dennis.

"They waited until we left," he choked out between sobs. "I don't get it."

Daughter Debbie Eisenbrey called it "cold."

"Chrysler's kicking us when we're down," she sobbed. "It's not fair."

Mike Palesi, a spokesman for the car company, issued a statement from Detroit:

"Chrysler's sympathies are with the St. John family for their loss. Unfortunately, this process is routine in such matters in order to preserve tissue needed to establish the cause of asbestos-related disease. Chrysler acted in a timely fashion, in accordance with directions from the New Jersey Court of Appeals, and in full knowledge of the family's attorneys. Numerous epidemiological studies have, indeed, refuted the link between automotive products and asbestos-related disease."

The family, though, said the lawsuit has been in the works for more than a year and that Harold underwent a painful biopsy to provide a tissue sample from the pleural lining of his cancer-ridden lungs while he was still alive.

"They have all the evidence they need," Debbie insisted. "It's a stall tactic. They're ruthless."

A hearing has been scheduled for Monday in state court in Newark where the family vows to fight the demand for additional tissue samples, they said on principle. Until the issue is resolved Harold St. John's body will remain at the David Demarco Funeral home in Monroe Township.

LINK:GRAVE ROBBERS: Chrysler Subpoenas Body At Funeral - wcbstv.com

[rickaren]

Judge rules against autopsy in asbestos case against Chrysler, Honeywell

March 12, 2009 13:54PM



A judge has again rejected attempts by two companies to autopsy a former Spotswood man who died from mesotheleoma Feb. 28, two days before his trial against the companies he asserted caused his cancer was to begin in New Brunswick.

Superior Court Judge Philip Paley ruled today that the religious and moral objections voiced by Harold St. John and his family against an autopsy took precedence over the need for Chrysler Motor Corp., Honeywell International and several other defendants to obtain lung tissue from St. John to determine if asbestos from their products caused his type of cancer.

"I am not satisfied that any material obtained would be anything but cumulative," Paley said, noting that the defendants have had samples of the outside lining of St. John's lung, known as the pleura, since December.

The judge said New Jersey law requires him to find "compelling public necessity" for the autopsy to grant the defendants' request, but he found none.

Paley first denied the companies' request for an autopsy last week, the day before St. John's funeral. Chrysler and Honeywell appealed Paley's ruling and an appeals panel stayed St. John's burial until Paley could hold a hearing to obtain testimony on whether an autopsy was needed.

The appellate court order was served on the funeral director moments before St. John was to be buried. Hours later, his family was told his body had been returned to the funeral home.

"It is cruel, what they did," said St. John's daughter, Debbie Eisenbrey. "We want to lay our dad to rest."

St. John was diagnosed with mesotheleoma in May.

St. John and his wife, Diana, filed suit against more than a dozen manufacturers last summer, contending St. John became ill because of exposure to the companies' products when he worked in a family-owned auto repair shop in the 1950s and 1960s.

Paley said he relayed his opinion to the appellate division this morning, but did not know when they would act.

Eisenbrey said for her family's sake, especially her mother, Diana, she hoped Paley's decision was the end of the efforts to autopsy her father.

"We want to mourn," she said.

LINK:Judge rules against autopsy in asbestos case against Chrysler, Honeywell - Breaking News From New Jersey - NJ.com