After Sheila Sterling died of cancer last September, her family hoped for one last peaceful farewell. What they got instead was a tragic and painful ordeal.

The family had planned for an open casket viewing before the funeral service. However, just before the viewing was to take place, Kimberly Byers, the sister of the deceased, says the Gonzalez Funeral Home and Crematory informed them that there would be no viewing.

Why? Because they had the wrong body.

“I don’t think we could truly express how we feel,” said Kimberly Byers.

“The remains they had were not of our sister. They were of a white male, and they weren’t sure how that occurred,” Byers says. “Everyone was shocked. We actually had a family member who exited the room because they were so upset.”

The only thing that could make this worse is if the funeral home went ahead and cremated  — oh, they did.

Sheila Sterling was cremated and her ashes presented to the family (although they have no way to prove whether or not it’s really Sterling).

Understandably, Byers and her family feel as if they didn’t get a chance to say their goodbyes.

“And that’s something we will never have,” Byers said.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/texas-family-suing-after-funeral-home-mix-up/

Ouch!

nevermind
 

Suing for profit?

No STUPID SHOULD HURT, and this stupid should truly hurt ALOT.  M ost funeral home charges a premium for their services for that cost this kind of fuck up should NEVER be tolerated.  Hell it cost my family over 6K to bury my grandmother last year.

6k? you got off easy.  Average funeral is 10k these days.  Not to dispute what you are saying, definitely agree.





 

Maybe but not necessarily.

I'd like to be sure that I'm paying my respects to the person I think I'm paying my respects to.

Funeral homes charge some significant fees for handling the deceased.

They shouldn't skate if they fuck up.

People pay funeral homes the rates they charge in the expectation that they'll handle the deceased correctly.  If that service is worth the dollars then failure to exercise due care in performance of that service is worth more.  There are very few "do-overs" in the funeral industry.

This ain't like they forgot the fries and put lettuce on the burger. There are some occupations where the effects of a screwup are so profound, you do your utmost to not let it happen.

This.  I felt like I got raped when I wrote the $3500 check to get my mom cremated and put in a little plastic box.  If they had managed to fuck that up at that cost, damn right I'd sue the retards.

Mistakes can happen in any business or field of human endeavor, because humans are, well, human (they make mistakes).  I get that.

However, if you are in the funeral business...

...you should take an extraordinary measure of care to prevent such mistakes!



If an extremely rare mistake happens despite taking extraordinary care, then that is understandable.  But to my thinking, the amount of time which elapses between one such mistake and another should be measured not in months or years, but in DECADES, and if this is not the case, the licensing authorities should investigate and someone should probably get their license yanked.

I have no sympathy for funeral homes. They take advantage of people at their most vulnerable time.

I'd say that should be worth a half million at least.

Good post.  I agree.

 

I'm ok with this.

Agree, this is more like what I was thinking. Shut the place down! All services for the loved one should be comped but the services not performed by them.  Dont know why but baby switching at the hospital comes to mind.

You said it much better than I did.

I think you missed something-switched babies are bad news but can be corrected.  Switched bodies of the deceased where the wrong one is cremated is an irrevocable action.

On top of that, funeral homes charge a lot of money for handling a body.  What are they charging for if not for due diligence?  It isn't always Cadillac hearses.  

The funeral home messed that up big time

I know but I dont know why that just came to mind? just popped up in there

Yeah my grandmothers will was pretty specific she just wanted a basic simple funeral, and her 4 kids (my mom being 1 of them) followed her wishes because when their numbers were up they didnt want to meet her in wherever we go after this one ends and have her kicking their collective asses for an erternity.