After being declared dead, woman battles red tape

The woman sued the funeral home.
CLEVELAND (AP) -- A cancer victim spent months repeatedly proving that she is alive to bank tellers, pharmacists and others after she was mistakenly declared dead in a Social Security number mixup.
A funeral director, relying on an erroneous discharge form from the Navy, used an incorrect Social Security number when notifying the government of the death of Dwight Brooks, 56, of Cleveland, last spring.
The number, instead of identifying Brooks, was that of Lucinda Gregory, 60, of Streetsboro.
"It is too late in life for me to be fighting like this," Gregory said. "I hope no one else ever goes through this."
Information had spread
By June, when Gregory, a widow unable to work because of her health, discovered that she was officially listed as dead, the false information had spread among government agencies, banks and insurers.
The root of the mixup dates to 1967, when the Navy discharged Brooks, a Vietnam veteran from Cleveland. His Social Security number has a "3" where Gregory's has a "2." The discharge papers incorrectly showed the "2."
Brooks, a metal worker and former bus driver, died in April. E.F. Boyd and Son Funeral Homes, which handled the funeral arrangements, used the information from Brooks' discharge papers, including the erroneous Social Security number, to notify the Social Security Administration.
When a government worker entered the number into Social Security's database, information about Gregory, including her name, date of birth and gender, should have appeared on the computer screen, said Jim Mattes, a spokesman from the agency's Youngstown office.
The worker was supposed to check the information from E.F. Boyd against the database. If the worker had done that, the error could have been caught and Gregory would not have been listed as dead.
"There's nothing a person can do to avoid this kind of mistake," Mattes said.
What happened next
The declaration of death set in motion a wave of reports, beginning with notice from the Social Security Administration to banks and Medicare. Banks then blocked access to checking and savings accounts. Her spousal pension stopped.
She traced the mixup to E.F. Boyd, which she sued for negligence after a receptionist laughed at her predicament.
George Zucco, E.F. Boyd's attorney, said no one at the funeral home laughed at Gregory. Zucco said the funeral home did nothing wrong.
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