In 2018, a San Antonio family buried their young son and nephew at the cemetery, purchasing both his plot and his headstone. In the years that followed, they never stopped coming. His mother visits regularly; his aunt has come nearly every day for years, marking his birthday, the anniversary of his death, Easter, Christmas, and every holiday in between with balloons, flowers, and small remembrances.
When the cemetery finally went to set his headstone, it got it wrong. In June 2020 it placed the concrete base over the wrong grave; when the aunt pointed out the error, a cemetery representative told her the base wasn’t even for him. The headstone that arrived days later was cracked and damaged, and after an attempt to simply glue it back together, the family asked that it be sent back. A replacement set months later was again placed in the wrong spot, and despite the family’s repeated objections, the cemetery did not correct it.
Then it escalated into something far worse. In October 2021, the cemetery claimed the young man was not buried where his family knows he is, and told them it intended to bury a different person in his plot. The family, certain of where their son and nephew rests, strongly objected, knowing any attempt to dig there would disturb his final resting place.
We are pursuing claims against the cemetery on behalf of the mother and aunt. A cemetery’s core duties are to bury each person in the correct, recorded plot, to place each headstone over the right grave, and to keep accurate records of where everyone lies. As pleaded, the cemetery failed repeatedly, the misplaced base, the cracked stone, the replacement set in the wrong location, and then a claim that the young man was buried somewhere other than where his family knows him to be.
The threat to bury another person in his plot turns a record-keeping failure into something the family experiences as a danger to their son’s resting place. A family that bought a specific plot, buried their child there, and has visited daily for years should not have to fight a cemetery to keep his grave undisturbed, or to get his own headstone placed over him.
We brought claims for negligence and for violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, including the cemetery’s failure to bury and mark the grave correctly, its failure to train and supervise the people responsible for interments and headstone placement, the misplaced and damaged headstone, and the threat to inter another individual in the young man’s plot. We are demanding that the cemetery account for the repeated errors and stand down from anything that would disturb his grave.
A family that visits a child’s grave every day deserves to know it is correctly marked and will be left in peace. We stepped in to make the cemetery answer for getting it wrong again and again, and for threatening the one thing the family had left to protect.
We brought claims for negligence and for violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, including the cemetery’s failure to bury and mark the grave correctly, its failure to train and supervise the people responsible for interments and headstone placement, the misplaced and damaged headstone, and the threat to inter another individual in the young man’s plot. We are demanding that the cemetery account for the repeated errors and stand down from anything that would disturb his grave.
A family that visits a child’s grave every day deserves to know it is correctly marked and will be left in peace. We stepped in to make the cemetery answer for getting it wrong again and again, and for threatening the one thing the family had left to protect.
