The family lost a loved one in July 2021 and made arrangements with the funeral home in Dallas. The agreement, signed by a funeral home officer, called for a funeral service, cremation, and return of the cremains to a named family member.
The funeral service was held. The body was sent for cremation. The cremains came back to the funeral home’s facility, and then went out the door to an individual with no authority to receive them.
The family was not told. When they came to the funeral home to collect their loved one’s ashes, that was when they found out the ashes were already gone.
The funeral home has never recovered the cremains.
We filed suit in Dallas County. We obtained the funeral home’s intake records, the signed funeral agreement, internal release logs, and chain-of-custody records for the cremains. We took sworn testimony from the staff responsible for releasing the ashes.
Under oath, the funeral home could not produce a release authorization signed by either family member named on the original agreement. The cremains were handed to a third party. The funeral home’s own process required verification of identity and matching authorization at release. Neither happened. Public Dallas County court records show the funeral home’s parent company has been sued more than thirty times in the last five years.
We brought claims for negligence, gross negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, trespass to the body, and violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. We invoked the family’s right of immediate possession of the cremains under Texas Health and Safety Code § 711.002. We made the funeral home produce its policies, training records, and the release paperwork it didn’t have.
A funeral home does not get to hand a family’s loved one over to a stranger and treat it as a paperwork error.
We brought claims for negligence, gross negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, trespass to the body, and violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. We invoked the family’s right of immediate possession of the cremains under Texas Health and Safety Code § 711.002. We made the funeral home produce its policies, training records, and the release paperwork it didn’t have.
A funeral home does not get to hand a family’s loved one over to a stranger and treat it as a paperwork error.
The matter resolved between the family and the funeral home. The terms of the resolution are confidential. The cremains have still never been recovered.
