Settlement near in US cornea scandal

Two eye banks and a US county in Ohio will pay the money to 545 plaintiffs, it has been reported, ending a long and bitter legal battle which arose after it was found that corneas were being sold from the coroner's office. According to Associated Press, the settlement will see Hamilton County pay $4.95m and the eye banks will pay $300,000. The settlement is subject to approval by the county commission and a federal judge. Representing one of the plaintiffs, solicitor John Metz told the Cincinnati Enquirer: 'I don't know if there's ever enough money that would suffice for having your loved one's body parts butchered and sold on the open market.' Cincinnati's Deborah Brotherton sued in 1989 when she discovered in an autopsy report that her husband's corneas had been used after his death in 1988. Other families supported the lawsuit, and it was found that coroner Frank Cleveland, who had 30 years' experience, had instituted a policy from 1985-91 to allow corneas to be taken unless expressly prevented by the deceased's next of kin. He retired in 1995, but four years later a US federal appeals court ruled that his policy had violated federal law.