Dealing with the loss of a loved one can be one of the most emotional and sensitive times of a person's life. Unfortunately, these feelings are sometimes aggravated by the improper, inappropriate or even illegal practices of cemeteries and funeral service companies.
Florida has specific laws designed to ensure that cemeteries and funeral service providers adhere to a high set of standards in honoring the wishes of the deceased and their surviving family. The Florida Funeral, Cemetery, and Consumer Services Act is an extensive statutory framework that establishes the minimum qualifications for and regulates the professions and occupations associated with embalming, funeral directing, cremation, and the handling of human remains. The law provides swift and effective discipline for those practitioners who violate the law and in some case may even provide for punitive damages.
Greenberg & Stone has been involved and consulted on a variety of cases brought against cemeteries, including the fraudulent selling of occupied plots and the improper burial of individuals. In one high profile case that was featured in multiple South Florida news media outlets, Greenberg & Stone is currently representing a woman and her two children who learned that their father/grandfather was missing from his burial plot after being laid to rest 17 years earlier. The family learned of this horror in October 2007, after the man's wife had passed away, and the plot was opened so that they could be buried together, as were their wishes. SCI, the largest cemetery and funeral service company in the world and the owner of the Dade South Memorial Park where the man was buried, initially had no idea where the body was, but later learned that he had been buried improperly in the wrong plot. SCI of course was the company sued in the now infamous Menorah Gardens cemetery cases in Palm Beach and Broward Counties.
Greenberg & Stone recognizes the importance of handling the deceased with dignity and the horrific impact a cemetery's negligence or wrongful conduct may have upon a family. We are in regular contact with the victimized family, comforting them in their time of need, and making every effort to ensure that the cemetery does not add to their grief and that once a loved is laid to rest, he or she remains that way.
For more information about a possible claim against a cemetery, please feel free to contact us. Greenberg & Stone works on a contingent fee basis, collecting no fees until we recover for our clients. For a free consultation, please call.
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