Two sisters file lawsuit against cemetery, burial vault company

July 27, 2015 at 7:15p.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

Two women, who dismissed their lawsuit against a funeral home and a body-transport service and its driver last fall, recently filed a new lawsuit against the cemetery – where their mother was buried and exhumed – and the company that made the purportedly defective burial vault.

Mary Jane Patton of Youngstown and Lilly May Curtis of Greenville, Pa., sued the Fithian-Wilbert Burial Vault Co. of Boardman; its former owner, Heather L. Davis; and the Lake Park Cemetery Association of Boardman in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

“The problem had nothing to do with anything our company did,” said Davis, who sold the vault company in January.

Davis, who declined to comment further, said the complaint is the first lawsuit against the company in her 36 years there.

Cemetery officials declined to comment on the complaint.

The dismissed 2011 lawsuit against the Shriver-Allison-Courtley-Weller-King Funeral Home of Youngstown and Funeral Home Services Corp. of Boardman, alleged improper transportation and preparation for burial of Rose White, of Youngstown, who died at age 93 on July 24, 2008.