Faulty Burial Lawsuit
The Anniston Star (AL)
Faulty Burial Leads To Lawsuit
Date: April 19, 2002
Article written by: Jason Landers, Star Staff Writer
Survivors of the Rev. Oscar Cotton are suing Forestlawn Mausoleum and Gray Brown-Service Mortuary, as well as the corporation that owns the companies, for what the lawsuit describes as “atrocious and utterly intolerable” conduct.
The first time Cotton was buried, family and friends grieved as his wooden casket was lowered into what was supposed to be a waterproof vault.
Three months after the Jan. 14 burial, a representative of the defendants informed survivors the company had mistakenly buried Cotton in the wrong vault, the lawsuit says.
It wasn’t the waterproof model the family claims it purchased. It wasn’t waterproof at all, according to the lawsuit.
Employees of the defendants allegedly exhumed the body after notifying the family of the mistake, and replaced the vault.
Miller Funeral Home, which performed the initial funeral, had the body exhumed a second time after consulting the family because officials there feared the casket was damaged. They found Cotton’s badly damaged casket had been reburied in the waterproof vault, said an attorney representing the survivors.
Officials at Miller declined comment at the request of the family.
“The casket was in horrible condition, and they hadn’t told the family. They just reburied it,” said attorney Keith Belt Jr., who represents Cotton’s widow, Henri, and daughter, Nancy Bumell. “The casket and its contents were contaminated and damaged by water that never should have been there.”
Belt has had previous experience fighting Gray Brown in court.
In 1997, he argued a case in which a jury found the company mishandled an entombment. Jurors awarded a $2 million verdict in that case.
Greg Bolton is a spokesman for Service Corporation International, the international corporation that owns Gray Brown-Service Mortuary and Forestlawn Mausoleum.
“We take anything like this very seriously,” Bolton said of the lawsuit, which was filed April 10. “We are reviewing the filing, and we will have some kind of response to make ? once we’ve determined all the facts.”
