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Burial vault firm and cemetery sued
The women had dismissed an earlier suit against a funeral home and body-transport service.
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.
That lawsuit alleged that White’s body was damaged in transit from the Cleveland Clinic, where she died, to the funeral home and that the funeral home improperly prepared her body because black stitching was visible around her eyes and mouth.
On March 4, 2014, then-Mahoning County Probate Judge Mark Belinky approved exhumation of White’s body for expert examination.
Charles M. Billow, an Akron funeral director and embalmer, who examined the corpse after its July 14, 2014, disinterment, said he saw no stitching of White’s eyes and mouth.
Billow concluded White had been properly embalmed and prepared for her funeral and burial by a competent embalmer.
The new lawsuit against the burial-vault company and cemetery alleges Patton and Curtis suffered emotional distress by witnessing the exhumation and its aftermath due to the faulty design and burial of the vault.
“The vault and casket were both filled with water,” which drained steadily for about 45 minutes after the exhumation, the lawsuit alleges.
“The condition of the casket and human remains was horrific,” the complaint says, adding that the vault didn’t conform to the 50-year warranty under which it was sold.
Because of water intrusion resulting from the vault’s failure, the maple casket lid had rotted and “collapsed onto the decedent, causing her facial features to be deformed,” the complaint says.
Patton and Curtis alleged in their complaint that the poor condition of the submerged body compromised or destroyed the evidence in the dismissed lawsuit against the funeral home and body transport service.
The lawsuit against the vault company and cemetery, which demands a jury trial and seeks damages in excess of $25,000, is assigned to Judge Shirley J. Christian.