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).”
