CREMATION LAWSUIT SETTLED : COUNTY PAYS $17,000 TO RELATIVES OF MAN FOUND DEAD.

Byline: Stacy Finz Daily News Staff Writer

Freddie Davila told his son that he was going on a long trip. His children had no idea that their father died of natural causes in his car before he ever made it out of town.

For a month Davila's body was preserved in the Los Angeles County morgue, left unclaimed.

But by the time Davila's son, Robert, and his daughter, Angela Williamson, learned of his death it was too late for a proper burial - he'd already been cremated by the coroner.

What they don't understand is why they were never notified. An address book containing Davila's family's names and phone numbers were found in the car where the 74-year-old Paramount man died, according to his children.

Last month, lawyers settled a lawsuit filed by Robert Davila and Williamson claiming that the county failed to properly notify them of their father's death. The county paid them a total of $17,000.

``They would not have cremated their father,'' said Davila and Williamson's attorney, Michael Kapland. ``They wanted a proper burial for him.''

Henry Patrick Nelson, the attorney representing the county in the case, said the Coroner's Office followed protocol, but didn't want the case to go to court and risk the possibility of being stuck with paying a hefty jury award.

``There is a big sympathy factor in cases like this,'' Nelson said. ``We didn't want to take a chance with taxpayers' money.''

Davila was found dead in his car on a Paramount street July 11, 1993, and his body was transported to the Coroner's Office. The Health and Safety Code permits the coroner to inter the remains of a body if no one claims the corpse after 30 days. However, the code says diligent efforts to notify the next of kin must be made.

Robert Davila said it wasn't until January 1994, after he filed a missing person report, that he learned his father had died. Davila said when he went to the Coroner's Office to retrieve his father's personal items he was given his wallet, which included an identification card with the younger Davila's phone number.

``There was no telephone calls to me nor any letters that came to me from the Coroner's Office,'' Davila wrote in court records.

Davila also found a wallet-sized address book in a satchel in his father's car, which was in a salvage yard.

``Not only was my name, address and telephone number in the book, all the other relatives were listed therein as well,'' Davila wrote in the documents.

But Nelson maintains that deputies never found the address book in the car. Furthermore, deputies made attempts to find the older Davila's home from his identification, only to be told that he had moved before he died, Nelson said.

``They even tried to trace the next of kin through (Freddie Davila's) Social Security number,'' he said. ``The county looked with what they had.''

A spokesman for the Coroner's Office could not be reached Friday for comment.