The family of missing organs victim Norman Palmer is to challenge a coroner's ruling that he was partly to blame for his own death.

A judicial review will take place in September to contest Coroner Khamisi Tokunbo's verdict that Mr. Palmer died of natural causes contributed to by self-neglect at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.

Jeffrey Elkinson, the family's lawyer, described the ruling yesterday as "incomprehensible", adding: "The magistrate misinterpreted the law. It's very straightforward. I don't think it will be that contentious."

Mr. Palmer, 57, an asthmatic with a 40-year-old gunshot wound in his neck, died on April 12 last year in the Emergency Room after three doctors struggled to save him.

He had earlier got into severe breathing difficulty at his home in Leafy Way, Paget, and was turning blue as his wife talked to a 911 operator.

Mr. Tokunbo said in his February ruling that Mr. Palmer's refusal to be admitted to hospital on the advice of an ER doctor six days before he died, plus his failure to return afterwards to KEMH, amounted to "a gross failure to obtain medical attention".

His verdict also found as fact that the patient's GP Monica Hoefert disagreed with the Emergency Room doctor's diagnosis of airway obstruction, telling Mr. Palmer that his health problems were due to asthma and prescribing an inhaler.

Mr. Tokunbo stated: "No doubt he was a person who trusted Dr. Hoefert and relied on her medical judgment."

Mr. Elkinson said the inclusion in the verdict of "self-neglect" and the rationale behind it was at odds with the view that Mr. Palmer, a self-employed Brit who had lived in Bermuda for decades, trusted and relied upon his GP's advice.

"The GP had said: 'You are fine, you only have asthma'," said Mr. Elkinson. "To then go ahead and say he was guilty of self-neglect, we say that was wrong.

"We make the point that based on what he said, it was incompatible, incomprehensible, that he could go on to say that he contributed to his own death. If you have a GP, how can you be neglectful if you are following that GP's advice?"

The case, brought by Mr. Palmer's widow Kathleen and his two sisters, Marion Bishop and Heather Carberry, will be heard before Puisne Judge Geoffrey Bell.

The family has previously said it will pursue legal action against Dr. Hoefert, who did not take part in a six-day inquest into Mr. Palmer's death but said afterwards she had "nothing to hide" regarding her care of Mr. Palmer.

Mr. Elkinson said he believed Mrs. Palmer wanted to get the judicial review dealt with before pursuing that matter.

A second inquest into the death of Mr. Palmer, many of whose organs and tissues were found to be missing after his body was flown to Britain for cremation, is still to be held in the UK.

The Royal Gazette understands that the coroner there is awaiting a file on the case from Police in Bermuda.