The High Court has quashed the Dublin coroner’s refusal to adjourn an inquest into the death of Pierre Christian Lawlor during cosmetic surgery in Bogotá, ruling that his family should have had a reasonable opportunity to obtain and assess hospital records. The court also quashed the open verdict and directed that a further inquest be held.
Mr Lawlor, a self-employed bathroom tiler, died aged 34 on 3 September 2007 while undergoing surgery in Colombia. His body was returned to Ireland, where a post-mortem examination was carried out by State Pathologist Professor Marie Cassidy.
At the inquest on 1 July 2008, Professor Cassidy said the post-mortem showed heart dilation and lung oedema. She said prolonged surgery might have caused heart failure, and that operation notes could show how much fat had been removed and shed light on Mr Lawlor’s condition during surgery. Without those notes, she could not give a definite opinion on whether the death was natural or resulted from a medical incident.
The coroner refused the family’s request for an adjournment and recorded an open verdict, citing the absence of information. The verdict listed cardiac failure due to prolonged surgery as the injury or disease causing death. The family later obtained the Colombian hospital records through diplomatic channels and sought judicial review of both decisions.
The coroner’s case was that enquiries through Gardaí and Interpol indicated the records could be obtained for an inquest only through a rogatory request linked to contemplated criminal proceedings, which were not expected. He argued that the records were not in English and that their absence was unlikely to have changed the verdict.
President of the High Court Kearns ruled that the coroner had wrongly concluded the records could not be obtained without criminal proceedings. He found they had been accessible through consular channels and that the family’s concerns gave them a legitimate interest in a fuller inquiry. The coroner should have adjourned to allow a reasonable opportunity to obtain the records and have them assessed by a medical expert.
The court said the coroner’s decision was inappropriate and disproportionate in the circumstances, and that the lack of records deprived the family of meaningful participation in the inquest. It rejected the argument that the verdict would have been unchanged: the coroner had not provided expert evidence addressing the medical reports, and the court said it could not assess those issues as a medical expert. The ruling did not determine the medical cause of death beyond the existing inquest record; it set aside the refusal and verdict and ordered a new inquest.