THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, April 18, 1996 TAG: 9604180381
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 59 lines
A lawsuit against deputy chief medical examiner Faruk B. Presswalla has brought the soon-to-retire autopsy expert into a new conflict with the state.
Presswalla contends he has been abandoned because the attorney general's office won't help defend him in the case brought by a couple whose month-old grandson died in November 1994. As a result, he said he's told prosecutors that he'll no longer freely offer medical opinions in court cases.
``I will not go out on a limb for this commonwealth anymore,'' he said. ``I have no confidence in this commonwealth.''
The dispute stemmed from an autopsy that concluded the infant died of shaken baby syndrome. The child's father was accused of shaking the boy and is scheduled to go on trial in June in Norfolk Circuit Court.
After the autopsy, the baby's grandparents wrote a scathing letter to Presswalla's boss, Chief Medical Examiner Marcella F. Fierro, that criticized Presswalla and other authorities who handled the case.
Presswalla said the couple contends the child had a birth defect that caused symptoms similar to shaken baby syndrome.
After the couple sent the letter to Fierro, Presswalla hired an attorney, who wrote back demanding an apology. If the couple refused, the letter said, Presswalla would sue them for defamation of character.
Instead, the couple brought a $5,000 lawsuit against Presswalla in March. The suit accused him of ``intentional infliction of emotional distress'' for threatening legal action.
Presswalla said he sent the lawsuit to Fierro, asking for help in defending the case. She turned his request over to the attorney general's office, which declined to offer assistance.
Mark A. Miner, a spokesman for Attorney General James S. Gilmore, said the suit was a personal matter because it resulted from Presswalla's attempt to get the couple to retract comments they had made about him to his boss.
Presswalla ``has a reputation for being a very fine medical examiner, and we have no argument at all about that,'' Miner said. ``But our feeling is that he shouldn't be asking state taxpayers to pay his legal bills in a private dispute.''
Presswalla disagrees that the issue is private.
``This is something that resulted out of my work and it does not remove the attorney general from the responsibility of defending me,'' he said.
Fierro refused to comment on the suit but said her office had no problems with how the autopsy was performed.
Presswalla, who plans to retire June 30, has had past conflicts with the state and has been an outspoken critic of how the medical examiner's office is run.
Two years ago he was involved in a dispute about overtime rules for medical examiners. In 1989, he resigned to protest a lack of staff pay raises but withdrew the resignation when the issue was resolved.
KEYWORDS: MEDICAL EXAMINER LAWSUIT ATTORNEY GENERAL by CNB