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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.”

The Anniston Star (AL)
MISHANDLING OF ENTOMBMENT PROVES COSTLY FOR GRAY BROWN

Date: November 8, 1997

Article written by: Jenny Cromie

A Calhoun County Jury returned a $2 million verdict again Gray Brown-Service Mortuary Friday in lawsuit charging the funeral home mishandled an Anniston woman’s entombment.

Jurors deliberated an hour and a half before returning the verdict, which Circuit Judge Malcolm Street said is one of the largest he’s seen in his 22 years on the bench. The trial, which began Monday in Street’s courtroom, stemmed from a 1996 lawsuit filed by Fred Patrick Lloyd, Jr. the husband of the late Lillian Faye Lloyd.

Mrs. Lloyd died in 1991 and was entombed in Forestlawn Mausoleum operated by Gray Brown-Service, court documents show. Sometime later, Mrs. Lloyd’s casket began to leak, and area residents who visited the mausoleum complained of the odor.

In June 1993, employees of Gray Brown-Service opened Mrs. Lloyd’s casket with a hacksaw and crowbar and poured a drying agent over her body, according to the lawsuit. Because of the damage to the $3,000 copper casket, mortuary employees where unable to properly reseal the casket, the lawsuit said.

Two months later, after another complaint about the odor, mortuary employees went back to the mausoleum at night, removed Mrs. Lloyd’s body from the casket, put it in a body bag, poured on more drying agent, and placed the body in another casket, court documents show. They buried the original casket.

The funeral home employees had failed to get proper permits required to reopen a coffin, according to testimony.

Mrs. Lloyd’s family said they did not learn what happened until a year later.

During closing arguments Friday, Anniston attorney Arthur Fite, who was representing Gray Brown-Service, told jurors that funeral home employees realized their error.

“Gray Brown made a very simple mistake,” he said.

Fite told jurors that the funeral home employees did not want to cause the family further upset and had to take care of what they considered an emergency situation.

Birmingham attorneys Keith “Kit” Belt and Hen Hooks, representing the Lloyds, asked jurors to consider returning a verdict with $1.5 million in damages for the mental anguish the incident caused the family.


Belt urged jurors to send a strong message to those in the funeral industry by returning a verdict in their favor.

“Emergency is not a legal defense in this case,” Hooks said of Gray Brown’s rationale for reopening Mrs. Lloyd’s casket.

Following Friday’s verdict, Mike Lloyd, Mrs. Lloyd’s son, said he was relieved with the jury’s decision.

“There’s no changing what they did,” he said. “But people in this town need to know (what happened).”