The family lost their loved one in April 2021. They laid him to rest at the cemetery in Houston, a privately owned perpetual-care cemetery, and the grave was marked with a headstone. For more than a year, the family came to that headstone to mourn, a mother visiting her son, siblings visiting their brother.
In October 2022, the cemetery called with news no family should ever have to hear: the headstone had been placed on the wrong plot. For over a year, the family had been grieving at a grave that was not their loved one’s.
It got worse. When the cemetery moved the headstone, it indicated the new location was where the decedent “may or may not” have been buried, an admission that the cemetery did not actually know where the family’s loved one was. To this day, the family cannot be certain where he rests.
We filed suit in Harris County and took the sworn testimony of the cemetery’s general manager. He explained the process: before any headstone goes in the ground, the cemetery marks the grave so the headstone is placed in the right spot, working from the cemetery’s own property records and the surrounding graves.
Under oath, he agreed that the headstone in this case ended up in the wrong place, and that the only way that could happen is if the cemetery marked the wrong grave. He agreed the family had visited the wrong location for roughly a year and a half believing their loved one was there, that the mistake could leave the family unsure where their loved one truly rests, and that, had he been handling it, he “would have paid closer attention to the details of the contract, the space, the paperwork.”
We brought claims for negligence, gross negligence, and violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. We made the cemetery produce its records and account, on the record, for marking the wrong grave, for letting a family mourn at the wrong headstone for more than a year, and for being unable to say with certainty where the family’s loved one is buried.
A cemetery’s most basic job is to know where the people in its care are buried. A family should never have to wonder whether the grave they are standing over is really their loved one’s.
We brought claims for negligence, gross negligence, and violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. We made the cemetery produce its records and account, on the record, for marking the wrong grave, for letting a family mourn at the wrong headstone for more than a year, and for being unable to say with certainty where the family’s loved one is buried.
A cemetery’s most basic job is to know where the people in its care are buried. A family should never have to wonder whether the grave they are standing over is really their loved one’s.
