The Supreme Court has given the green light to a proposed Coroner’s Inquest into the death of Hubert “Hubie” Brown, despite arguments by the Bermuda Hospitals Board.

Mr Brown ran Hubie’s Bar on Angle Street, and died at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital in December 2002, at the age of 66.

According to Mr Brown’s death certificate he died due to “disseminated intravascular coagulation” caused by given the wrong type of blood during a transfusion.

Senior Coroner Archibald Warner had sought to open an inquest into Mr Brown’s death last year following a prolonged police investigation, but the BHB applied for judicial review to prevent the inquest.

During a Supreme Court hearing last month lawyer Allan Doughty, representing the BHB, argued that Section 10 of the Coroners Act only requires an inquest under a very limited range of circumstances, such as when a person dies in prison, mental hospital or police custody, or as the result of injuries caused by a police officer.

Because Mr Brown did not die in such circumstances, they argued the Coroner had no jurisdiction to hold an inquest.

However, in a judgement released yesterday Puisne Judge Stephen Hellman said such a finding would be a “surprising result”.

“It would not reflect how the current version of the 1938 Act has generally been understood to operate, and would in all likelihood mean that since the amendments made by the 1999 Act came into force the Respondents have been blithely carrying out inquests in circumstances where they have had no jurisdiction to do so,” Justice Hellman wrote.

“There is no suggestion in the explanatory memorandum that the redrafted sections eight and ten were intended to narrow the range of circumstances in which the Coroner could hold an inquest. The amendment to section 11 does not even rate a mention.

“Moreover, as the respondents submit, it has long been recognised that there is a public interest in the Coroner holding an inquest where there is reasonable cause to suspect that a person has died a violent or unnatural death or a death of which the cause is unknown. These are matters which are rightly of concern to the community and an inquest gives them the opportunity to understand what has happened and why.”

Mr Justice Hellman wrote that he did not find the BHB’s arguments persuasive, saying that if the Coroner was limited, as the applicants suggested, there would be no need for a requirement included elsewhere in the legislation that the Coroner be notified of any case where a dead body is discovered within the jurisdiction and there is reason to suspect the person died a violent or unnatural death.

“In my judgment, the Coroner is required to hold an inquest in the circumstances specified in Section 10,” the judge wrote. “He has, as the respondents submit, a discretion to hold an inquest where he is notified of a dead body in the other circumstances set out in Section 8. The Coroner’s discretionary jurisdiction is not conferred expressly, but arises by implication.

“The Coroner therefore has a discretionary jurisdiction to hold an inquest where, as in the case of Mr Brown, there is reason to suspect that the person died an unnatural death.”

The judge dismissed the BHB’s application for judicial review and discharged an interim injunction, which had been put in place while proceedings were ongoing.