My office represents families who have been the victims of funeral home and cemetery mistakes. It still amazes me that the following tragedies continue to happen. consumerist.com reports the following story: Mount Auburn Funeral Home in Stickney, Illinois, mixed up the tags on a couple of bodies, so that when mourners showed up to view 91-year-old Lillian Grogan on Monday, they instead saw a different lady wearing Grogan’s clothes and jewelry. When a granddaughter tried to find out what the funeral home had done with the real Grogan, she discovered the woman had already been buried. She was exhumed and reburied yesterday. In a Jacksonville case my office recently settled the local medical examiner mixed up the tags on dead bodies resulting in the wrong body being cremated.
The funeral home referred questions to its parent company, Houston-based Service Corporation International. Company spokeswoman Jennifer Brandino said the families had requested the company not disclose information about the mix-up.
“We continue to work with both families involved and are committed to resolving the issue to their satisfaction,” Brandino said.
consumerist.com had a great question: Why did the quaintly named Mount Auburn Funeral Home refer questions to SCI to explain what was obviously a local mistake? Because if you’re going to be owned by the country’s largest funeral home corporation—it’s like the Buy n Large (or maybe Umbrella Corp) of “end-of-life services”—you may as well use it to hide behind when you screw up.
“Grandmother’s body switched at Ill. funeral home” [Chicago Tribune]
If a loved one has been the victim of a funeral home mistake, cemetery negligence or cremation mistake in Florida or anywhere in the United States please do not hesitate to call the Law Offices of Henry Gare at (904) 387-6101.