When their mother passed away, her surviving children made their wishes clear. A daughter designated a different funeral home as the funeral facility and named a specific cemetery as the place of disposition on her mother’s death certificate. The family had chosen who would care for their mother and where she would be laid to rest.
The funeral home was not that choice. Even so, the funeral home removed the mother’s body from the hospital without authority and embalmed her without the family’s consent. When the funeral home the family had actually selected went to retrieve her, the funeral home could not find the body it had taken.
By the time the situation was sorted out, the harm was done. The mother had been placed in an improperly air-conditioned room and left to deteriorate, her face had been allowed to become disfigured, and her personal property was wrongfully retained. Her burial, which should have proceeded promptly, was delayed for weeks, until May 8, 2020.
We pursued claims against the funeral home on behalf of the family. A funeral home has no right to take a body it was never authorized to handle, and no right to embalm someone without the family’s consent. As pleaded, the funeral home did both, and then compounded it by losing track of the body, storing it improperly, allowing disfigurement, and holding onto the deceased’s belongings.
Texas law gives surviving children the right to immediate possession of their parent’s remains and the right to direct the burial. The funeral home interfered with both. Taking a mother the family never entrusted to it, embalming her without consent, and delaying her burial for weeks is not a paperwork error, it is an intrusion on the family’s most basic right to lay their mother to rest the way they chose.
We brought claims for negligence, for violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, for interference with the family’s right to possession of the body and to direct its disposition, and for the emotional toll of what was done. We demanded that the funeral home account for taking the mother without authority, embalming her without consent, losing track of her body, and delaying her burial.
A family has the right to choose who cares for their mother and to bring her home on their terms. A funeral home that overrides that choice, takes the body without permission, and then cannot even say where she is has to answer for it.
We brought claims for negligence, for violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, for interference with the family’s right to possession of the body and to direct its disposition, and for the emotional toll of what was done. We demanded that the funeral home account for taking the mother without authority, embalming her without consent, losing track of her body, and delaying her burial.
A family has the right to choose who cares for their mother and to bring her home on their terms. A funeral home that overrides that choice, takes the body without permission, and then cannot even say where she is has to answer for it.
The matter resolved between the family and the funeral home. The terms of the resolution are confidential.
