The Yokohama District Court has ordered the government of Kanegawa to pay 5.5 million yen to the survivors of man who claim that police incompetence may have contributed to his death.

Back in July 1997, police received a call that a car was stopped in the middle of an intersection in Yokohama. Officers who arrived on the scene found the man unconscious in the vehicle, but left him there after they deduced that he was probably drunk. Eleven hours later, the man was taken to a hospital where he died.

“The man might have survived if the officers in charge had rescued him,” Presiding Judge Fumiaki Tsuchiya said as he handed down the ruling.

The family had also demanded further compensation from a doctor who apparently falsely claimed to have performed an autopsy on the dead man and forged a medical certificate. During the trial, DNA tests showed that tissue samples that the doctor had claimed were from the dead man actually belonged to someone else.