Hospital Accused In Sending Deceased Infant to Dirty Laundry Rather Than Morgue

Amy Rothschild

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On July 8, Kourtney McGee of Cleburne was in her second trimester when she went to Huguley Memorial Medical Center of Fort Worth because she was bleeding. She gave birth prematurely to Jacob Dwayne Robinson, who did not survive. Hospital staff told Ms. McGee, the mother, and Milburn "Pete" Robinson, the father, that their child's body would be taken to the morgue.

When the funeral director arrived at the hospital to retrieve the baby's body, he was told that the body could not be found. The baby's body was not refrigerated when it got to the morgue. Instead it was sent to a commercial cleaner with the dirty laundry.

The parents filed a lawsuit for negligence and gross negligence against Huguley Memorial Medical Center
as a result of hospital staff sending their deceased newborn not the hospital's morgue, but rather, to the cleaners with the dirty laundry. The lawsuit alleges that it took 19 hours for the hospital staff to find the newborn's missing body. By then, the body had been crushed and disfigured.

The lawsuit contends that Huguley Memorial Medical Center had a duty to care for, handle, maintain and/or prepare for burial the body of Jacob Robinson. It breached its duty by "mishandling, misplacing, and disfiguring the body..." The family is seeking damages for severe emotional pain and anguish, as well as punitive and exemplary damages.
How did the baby end up in the laundry?

The hospital has denied doing anything inappropriate.

For more information on this subject, please refer to the section on Medical Malpractice and Negligent Care.