The family had purchased a six-space plot at the cemetery in Houston long before they needed it, one space for each member of the family. In April 2024, one of the sisters passed away, and the surviving sister arranged her embalming, burial, and final disposition through the cemetery.
On the morning of the graveside service, the family arrived at the cemetery to find that a stranger had been buried that same morning in the space where their sister was supposed to be laid to rest. The grave the family had paid for was already occupied by someone they had never met.
Because of the cemetery’s carelessness, the family could not bury their sister on the day of her service. Her body had to be stored for more than a week, and the delay caused severe deterioration. The cemetery did not remove the stranger in time, and the family’s sister ultimately had to be buried in a different grave within their own plot.
We filed suit in Harris County against the funeral home and the cemetery. The basics failed at every step: the grave was not prepared for the family’s sister, a stranger was placed in her space, and no one corrected the mistake in time to hold the service as planned. The family was left to grieve while their loved one waited more than a week for burial.
Behind the local-sounding name, this is a corporate operation. Families are told they are dealing with a neighborhood funeral home and cemetery, but the people responsible for preparing the grave, placing the right person in the right space, and supervising the burial answered to a larger company, and on this burial, that system failed a grieving family at the worst possible moment.
We brought claims for negligence and negligent misrepresentation, and for violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, including representing that the services had benefits and a quality they did not have, breaching the implied warranty that the services would be performed in a good and workmanlike manner, and engaging in an unconscionable course of action. We made the company account for burying a stranger in the family’s plot, for failing to prepare the grave, for failing to remove the stranger in time, and for failing to bury the family’s sister on the day of her own service.
A cemetery does not get to sell a family their own resting place, bury a stranger in the space they paid for, and leave them standing at a graveside service with nowhere to lay their sister to rest.
We brought claims for negligence and negligent misrepresentation, and for violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, including representing that the services had benefits and a quality they did not have, breaching the implied warranty that the services would be performed in a good and workmanlike manner, and engaging in an unconscionable course of action. We made the company account for burying a stranger in the family’s plot, for failing to prepare the grave, for failing to remove the stranger in time, and for failing to bury the family’s sister on the day of her own service.
A cemetery does not get to sell a family their own resting place, bury a stranger in the space they paid for, and leave them standing at a graveside service with nowhere to lay their sister to rest.
