Houston Funeral Home Cut a Mother's Hair

A Houston daughter trusted the funeral home with her mother’s body and was told it would remain intact. The funeral home cut her mother’s hair without asking anyone. The family found out after the service, when nothing could be undone.

What Happened

A promise that the body would remain intact, broken before the family ever knew.

The daughter’s mother passed away in Harris County in November 2019. The daughter arranged her mother’s funeral with the funeral home, and the funeral home assured her that her mother’s body would remain intact, hair included. The family gave no direction and no permission to change anything about her appearance.

The funeral was held six days later. It was only after the service that the daughter was informed her mother’s hair had been cut. No one had asked her. No one had told her beforehand. The decision was made for her, about her own mother’s body, by people she had trusted to follow her wishes.

When confronted, the funeral home’s coordinator admitted fault, acknowledging she had made a mistake in cutting the mother’s hair. By then it was too late. The funeral had already happened, and the family’s last image of their mother had been altered without their consent.

What We Found

The funeral home’s own coordinator admitted the mistake.

We filed suit in Harris County. The funeral home had represented to the family that the body would remain intact with no discernible changes, and then cut the mother’s hair anyway, against the family’s wishes and without their knowledge. The funeral home’s coordinator admitted the error to the family directly.

A funeral home does not own the body in its care. Every alteration, down to a haircut, belongs to the family to decide. When a funeral home promises a family that nothing will be changed and then changes it anyway, that is not a small mistake. It is a breach of the most personal trust a family can place in a business.

What We Did

We made the funeral home answer for it.

We brought claims for negligence, negligent misrepresentation, breach of the implied warranty to perform services in a good and workmanlike manner, and violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. We are making the funeral home account, on the record, for promising a family the body would remain untouched, and then altering it without permission.

A daughter should never have to learn, after the funeral, that strangers changed her mother’s appearance without asking.

Learn more about our Texas funeral home negligence practice.

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