Coroner’s Skull Collection Fails to Create Liability for County

Two brothers failed to convince a federal appeals court that an Illinois county should be held liable for its former coroner keeping human remains from the bodies he examined.

Gary and Earl Betts couldn’t meet the standards to sue Boone County under the US Supreme Court’s opinion in Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York because the coroner “frustrated an official policy rather than established one,” a divided panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit said in a Monday opinion affirming the case’s dismissal.

Judge David F. Hamilton dissented, suggesting ...