The Massachusetts Appeals Court today ruled against a family that had sued two state medical examiners who initially seemed to have identified the wrong body after the death of their son in a 2001 plane crash in Danvers.

DNA testing of the cremated remains proved the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner had, in fact, turned over the correct body - and that the autopsy report showing the victim was "uncircumcised," when the parents knew their son was circumcised, was a mistake.

The parents argued that mistake caused them "to suffer severe emotional distress and great expense." The court, however, ruled that state law does not require medical examiners to notify next of kin of autopsy results, that state law exempts tort actions against state employees in the normal scope of their jobs and that the doctors did not misidentify the bod.

However, Justice Peter Rubin dissented, saying the medical examiners failed the family twice: Once by giving them an autopsy report that made them doubt whether the body parts they cremated all belongs to their son (the remains were in three separate bags) and again by refusing repeatedly to answer their questions after they looked at the autopsy:

The question here, however, is not whether the OCME has a duty to the next of kin to issue an accurate autopsy report. The duty at issue here is the duty to identify the body the OCME releases to the next of kin and to inform them of that identification. The facts alleged in the complaint are sufficient to allege a breach of that duty.

Complete ruling.