Houston Funeral Home Buried a Mother Without Consent

A Texas family trusted the funeral home with their mother’s burial. On the morning of the rescheduled service, while the family was on the road to the cemetery, the funeral home told them their mother had already been buried. The family still does not know where her grave is.

What Happened

A burial the family was never allowed to see.

The family’s mother passed away on January 22, 2024. Her daughter hired the funeral home to prepare her mother for burial and to handle the graveside and burial services. The burial was scheduled for February 3, 2024.

On the day of the service, the funeral home canceled because of rain and rescheduled the burial for the afternoon of February 10. That morning, while the daughter and her family were already on the road to witness the burial, the funeral home told them their mother had already been put in the ground. No one had asked the family. No one had waited for them. The funeral home buried her knowing the family was on the way.

Then it got worse. The funeral home has never identified where the burial took place. The daughter does not know where her mother’s body is buried, not the plot, not the grave, not the place. The family was denied the burial service they paid for, and they were denied a grave to visit afterward.

What We Found

No notice, no consent, no record of the grave.

We filed suit in San Jacinto County, where the events took place. The funeral home buried the family’s mother without communicating with the daughter, without notifying her that it intended to bury her mother early, and without obtaining her written delegation, consent, or permission. It then failed at something even more basic: keeping a record of where it put her. The funeral home lost the body of the woman it was hired to bury.

A funeral home cannot bury someone’s mother ahead of schedule, in secret, while her family is driving to the service, and it certainly cannot then shrug at the question of where she is. Texas law and basic decency both require more.

What We Did

We made the funeral home answer for it.

We brought claims for negligence, negligent misrepresentation, and violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, including the failure to perform funeral services in a good and workmanlike manner. We are making the funeral home account, on the record, for burying a mother without her family’s knowledge or consent, for failing to train and supervise the people entrusted with her care, and for being unable to tell a grieving daughter where her mother is buried.

A daughter should never have to learn, from the road, that her mother’s burial already happened, and she should never have to wonder where her mother rests.

Learn more about our Texas funeral home negligence practice.

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