After their father passed away, three daughters turned to the funeral home for a memorial service with cremation. The funeral home advertises a Memorial Service with Cremation package and represents to the public that family members are allowed to be present when the body is placed into the cremation chamber.
That mattered to this family: they wanted to witness the cremation with a spiritual leader present, to give their father a final goodbye, to confirm the body being cremated was his, and to know he was preserved and clothed as he had left home. The family relied on those representations and made their wishes clear. They had a detailed discussion with the funeral home’s representatives about the opportunity, and the demand, to view the cremation with their spiritual leader present. They believed, as many families do, that bearing witness was a final act of respect they would be allowed to perform.
That never happened. The crematory, the exclusive cremation provider for the funeral home, cremated the father with no notice to the daughters, before any of them could be present. When the family sought an explanation, the funeral home’s owner described the premature cremation as a “miscommunication” within its operations.
We are pursuing claims against the funeral home and the crematory on behalf of the family. The funeral home markets being present for the cremation as part of what it sells, and this family bought that service and stated their wishes plainly. The crematory cremated their father anyway, without notice and before the family could be there, and, as pleaded, without first obtaining the burial-transit permit Texas regulations require.
Letting a family witness the cremation they were promised is not an extra, it is the service the funeral home advertised and sold. Cremating a father before his daughters could be present, then explaining it away as a “miscommunication,” takes from them something that can never be given back.
We are pursuing claims for negligence, negligent misrepresentation, and violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, including representations that the services had benefits the family never received, the failure to perform those services in a good and workmanlike manner, and an unconscionable course of action in promising a witnessed goodbye the family was never given. We are demanding that the funeral home and the crematory account for how the father was cremated without notice and without the family present.
A family that is promised they can witness a cremation has a right to be there. A funeral home and crematory that sell that promise have to keep it, and answer when they don’t.
Learn more about our Texas funeral home negligence practice.
