EMTs who allegedly placed living woman in body bag and sent her to funeral home can't be sued, federal court says

The first responders in Michigan who allegedly placed a living woman in a body bag and had her transported to a funeral home cannot be sued, a federal court has ruled.

The tragic situation unfolded nearly three years ago. On the morning of August 23, 2020, Erika Lattimore discovered her 20-year-old daughter, Timesha Beauchamp, unresponsive in their home in Southfield, Michigan, about 15 miles northwest of Detroit. Beauchamp had cerebral palsy, and Lattimore was her primary caretaker. Lattimore called 911, and EMTs arrived about 20 minutes later.

Though family members detected a pulse in Beauchamp and saw her breathing, EMTs Michael Storms, Scott Rickard, Phillip Mulligan, and Jake Kroll allegedly insisted that she was dead and that any residual symptoms of life were the result of medication. An unidentified doctor who was not present at the scene but who was contacted via phone likewise declared Beauchamp dead.

Even a funeral home employee who had arrived at the home to transport the supposed remains expressed concerns that Beauchamp may still have been alive, but the first responders reportedly repeated the same story about medication. The employee accepted the explanation and transported Beauchamp to the funeral home.

What happened next is truly bone-chilling. The embalmer unzipped the body bag and "saw Beauchamp gasping for air with her eyes open and her chest moving up and down," a court document stated. Beauchamp was then raced to the hospital, where she remained on a ventilator and in a vegetative state until her death six weeks later. An autopsy later determined that she died of an anoxic brain injury, which some have suggested was caused by the time she spent zipped up in the body bag.

Despite evidence of several serious missteps on the part of the EMTs, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled unanimously that the EMTs and the city of Southfield were immune to civil litigation in this case.

Though the ruling might sound puzzling, it appears the circuit judges, all appointed by Republican presidents, deferred to what Courthouse News Service described as "a general rule" that there is "no constitutional right to competent medical assistance or rescue services," a general rule which the plaintiff attorneys seemed to have acknowledged.

Attorney Robert Kamenec of Fieger Law, who represented Beauchamp's estate, attempted to argue that such "egregious conduct" from EMTs acting in a city-established capacity posed a "state-created danger," the lone exception to the "general rule" regarding medical assistance. He also argued that the EMTs' position and authority as medical professionals dissuaded Beauchamp's family members from rendering their own assistance.

The judges did not agree. "There was no show of authority," U.S. Circuit Judge Joan Larsen, a Trump appointee, suggested during the hearing. "It was just misleading information."

"It is hard to see how it could be ‘clearly established’ that the first responders exposed Beauchamp to a private act of violence when they mistakenly believed she was dead and left her in her family’s care to be processed for routine funeral proceedings, which included the funeral home employee’s act of putting Beauchamp’s presumed-dead body into a body bag to transport her to a funeral home," U.S. Circuit Judge Julia Gibbons, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote on behalf of the majority.

The lawsuit had originally sought $50 million. It is unclear whether the plaintiffs intend to appeal the ruling.

It also appears that at least two of the EMTs reported to be involved had their licenses suspended soon after the incident. However, the state agreed to reinstate licenses for Storms and Rickard — who were both also Southfield firefighters — in December 2020, provided they fulfill several conditions. Whether they actually fulfilled those conditions is unclear.

Law&Crime reached out to attorneys from both sides for comment on the decision but did not receive a response from any of them.

The following is a news clip about the story from two years ago:

Southfield Fire to answer questions about ongoing Timesha Beauchamp investigationwww.youtube.com

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