Federal Court grants father leave to appeal dismissal of negligence lawsuit against government over son’s autopsy, focusing on duty of care.
PUTRAJAYA: The Federal Court has granted a father leave to appeal the dismissal of his negligence lawsuit concerning the autopsy on his son.
A three-member bench allowed the application filed by Joseph Anthony, 75, as the administrator of his son Sebastian’s estate.
The appeal will focus on a single question of law regarding the duty of care of a government medical officer performing a post-mortem.
The legal question is whether such an officer owes a duty exclusively to the state or also to private individuals like the parents of the deceased.
The defendants in the original suit are Dr Muhamad Arif Mohamad Rasat, the Langkawi Hospital director, and several government entities.
Joseph’s son, Dr Sebastian Joseph, was a 30-year-old medical officer found deceased in his government quarters in Langkawi in November 2010.
An initial autopsy performed by Dr Muhamad Arif listed the cause of death as unascertained.
Dissatisfied, Joseph obtained a court order to exhume his son’s remains for a second post-mortem in 2015.
Joseph asserted that two independent pathologists concluded the first post-mortem was performed negligently and incompetently.
He is seeking general, special, exemplary and aggravated damages from the respondents.
The respondents argued they owed no duty of care to the deceased, who was not a patient but a deceased person.
They further denied any act of negligence in their defence.
The suit was initially dismissed by the High Court in June 2023.
The Court of Appeal upheld this decision, dismissing Joseph’s appeal last August.
Joseph Anthony was represented by lawyers M Visvanathan, K Selva Kumaran, V Sanjay Nathan, and Pushan Qin Nathan.
Senior Federal Counsel Ahmad Hanir Hambaly @ Arwi, Zetty Zurina Kamaruddin and Shazreen Nadia Zulkipli appeared for the respondents.
