Plundering the Friendless Dead: King County Doctors Under Investigation
The medical society opens a probe into members accused of padding bills against the estates of patients who died with no heirs.
SEATTLE. — Plundering of estates of the friendless dead is a subject that is to be investigated thoroughly by the trustees of the King County Medical Society. The probe is a direct outcome of the scandals recently exposed by Court Commissioner Robert H. Lindsay from the superior bench. Several members of the medical organization are under suspicion of having padded their bills for services rendered in Seattle during the last year, and who left no heirs. If it be found that any of the members of the society are guilty of the practice of presenting extortionate bills against the estates of the friendless dead, expulsion probably will follow.
“Plundering of estates of the friendless dead is a subject that is to be investigated thoroughly.”
The phrase 'friendless dead' is doing a lot of work here: people who died alone, with no family to contest a bill, were the easiest to overcharge. A century later, probate and estate-fraud cases still turn on the same vulnerability — the patient with no one in the waiting room. The King County Medical Society's willingness to police its own is the rare part.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.