Father of decedent filed a complaint against county under the Mississippi Tort Claims Act (MTCA), alleging that county’s coroner and deputy coroner failed to perform the ministerial duty of ordering an autopsy following his daughter’s death.
The County Court granted county’s motion for summary judgment and denied father’s cross-motion for partial summary judgment. Father appealed.
The Supreme Court held that:
- County did not have a ministerial duty to conduct an autopsy following decedent’s death;
- Father did not establish that county’s medical examiners violated the statutory duty to obtain or attempt to obtain postmortem blood;
- County coroners did not breach any duty regardless of decedent’s actual cause of death, and
- The question of county’s alleged discretionary-function immunity was moot.