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When a loved one passes away, you expect the funeral home you choose to honor their wishes and treat them with respect and dignity. Truthfully, this is the least a funeral home can do for an already-grieving family. Unfortunately, this does not always happen. Over the years, we’ve seen shockingly egregious behavior on the part of funeral homes across Florida, and we’ve seen, first-hand, the devastating impact this can have on families. For this reason, if you believe a funeral home was negligent and violated the trust you placed in it, you can have confidence in your decision to turn to an experienced and steadfast Broward County funeral home negligence lawyer here at The Finizio Law Group to fight for the justice you deserve. Contact our team today so you can tell us your story.
Funeral home negligence is when a funeral establishment, funeral director, crematory, cemetery, or another deathcare provider fails to exercise the level of care reasonably expected under the circumstances, thereby causing emotional or financial harm to surviving family members. Simply put, funeral homes are entrusted with caring for deceased individuals and carrying out extremely sensitive services, and because of this, they are expected to follow the law, accepted professional standards, written agreements, and the lawful instructions of the family.
Importantly, from the moment human remains are accepted into its care, a funeral establishment may be responsible for identifying, transporting, storing, preparing, embalming, displaying, cremating, or arranging the burial of the deceased. Some of the most important duties funeral homes owe to families are as follows:
Funeral homes and other deathcare providers are closely regulated in Florida. The primary state law governing funeral homes, funeral directors, embalmers, crematories, cemeteries, direct disposers, and preneed funeral services is Chapter 497 of the Florida Statutes. Additional requirements are found in Division 69K of the Florida Administrative Code, which contains rules enforced by the Florida Department of Financial Services, Division of Funeral, Cemetery, and Consumer Services.
Under Florida law, a person or business generally may not operate a funeral establishment without the appropriate license. Each licensed funeral establishment must also have a qualified funeral director in charge, and that director is responsible for ensuring that the facility, its employees, and its operations comply with state and federal laws. Funeral establishments are subject to inspection, must display current licenses, and must maintain appropriate facilities or arrangements for the refrigeration, storage, and preparation of human remains.
Florida Statute § 497.386 also establishes specific requirements for the storage, preservation, and transportation of human remains. For example, a dead human body generally may not be held for more than 24 hours after death without being refrigerated at 40 degrees Fahrenheit or below, embalmed, or preserved through another approved method. Human remains must also be completely covered and treated with dignity and respect while being transported or stored.
Funeral home negligence can occur in many different ways. Some cases involve administrative errors that could have easily been prevented through basic recordkeeping, while others involve serious misconduct that permanently deprives a family of the opportunity to bury, view, or say goodbye to their loved one as intended.
Mishandling can include dropping remains, storing a body improperly, leaving remains exposed, placing multiple bodies together without proper identification, or otherwise failing to treat the deceased with dignity. Though funeral home employees routinely work with human remains, they are still required to remember that each deceased person was a member of a grieving family and must be treated accordingly.
Cremation is irreversible, which is why funeral homes and crematories must carefully confirm the identity of the deceased and obtain proper authorization before proceeding. A wrongful cremation may occur when a person is cremated against the family’s wishes, contrary to a burial agreement, without legally valid authorization, or because the funeral home confused one person’s remains with another’s.
Misidentification may result in the wrong body being presented at a viewing, released to another family, buried in the wrong plot, or sent to a crematory. These mistakes may stem from missing identification tags, inaccurate paperwork, poor internal procedures, or employees failing to confirm identifying information before carrying out a service.
In particularly serious cases, a funeral home, crematory, transportation provider, or cemetery may be unable to locate a person’s body or cremated remains. Families may spend weeks or months trying to determine what happened, and even when the remains are eventually located, the uncertainty and distress caused by the loss can be considerable.
Burial errors can include burying a loved one in the wrong cemetery plot, placing the wrong remains in a grave, using an incorrect casket, failing to prepare the gravesite, or burying the deceased in a manner that contradicts the family’s agreement. A cemetery may also be responsible if a grave is improperly marked or if inaccurate records make it difficult to locate the burial site later.
Embalming must be performed by a properly licensed professional and in accordance with accepted practices. Unfortunately, errors during this process may cause visible disfigurement, decomposition, or other conditions that make an open-casket viewing impossible or significantly more distressing for relatives.
Funeral and burial practices frequently carry deep religious, spiritual, and cultural importance. A funeral home may be negligent when it agrees to follow certain instructions, such as completing a burial within a particular period, refraining from embalming, preparing the body in a particular manner, or allowing specific religious rites, and then fails to do so.
Many people make and pay for funeral arrangements before death so their families will not have to make those decisions later. If a funeral home refuses to honor a valid preneed agreement, substitutes lower-quality merchandise, adds unauthorized charges, or claims that promised services are no longer available, the family may have claims based on breach of contract, consumer protection laws, or other legal theories.
Families may give a funeral home clothing, jewelry, eyeglasses, military medals, religious items, photographs, or other possessions to be displayed or buried with their loved one. When those items are lost, stolen, damaged, removed without permission, or given to another family, the funeral home may be responsible for their financial and sentimental value.
Funeral homes generally must obtain appropriate consent before embalming, cremating, burying, transporting, or otherwise disposing of human remains. Proceeding based on an incomplete form, an unauthorized person’s instructions, a forged signature, or no authorization at all can have permanent and devastating consequences.
Human remains must be transported in an appropriate container and accompanied by the required documentation. Florida law requires transportation containers to prevent the seepage of fluids and escape of offensive odors, and transportation must generally be accompanied by a properly completed burial-transit permit.
Funeral homes, crematories, and cemeteries rely heavily on accurate records. If records are incomplete, falsified, lost, or improperly entered, families may receive the wrong cremated remains, visit an incorrectly marked grave, or discover that no one can explain what happened to their loved one.
A funeral home may be held responsible when it fails to properly screen, train, supervise, or discipline its workers. For example, inexperienced employees should not be permitted to perform specialized services without appropriate oversight, and workers who repeatedly violate procedures should not be allowed to continue placing families at risk.
Funeral establishments are expected to maintain sanitary preparation rooms, refrigeration equipment, storage areas, vehicles, and other facilities. Unsanitary conditions, broken refrigeration systems, pest infestations, inadequate ventilation, and improper preservation methods can result in decomposition, contamination, odors, and damage to remains.
After cremation, the crematory or funeral home must ensure that the correct remains are properly identified, secured, and returned to the appropriate person. A failure to return ashes, returning only a portion of the remains, giving the family the wrong ashes, or disposing of them without authorization may give rise to legal action.
Disinterment refers to removing human remains from a grave after burial. Because exhumation is highly sensitive, it generally may not be performed simply because a cemetery or funeral provider finds it convenient to do so. Removing, relocating, or disturbing remains without proper legal authority or family permission may result in liability.
A funeral contract may provide for a visitation, memorial service, hearse, flowers, specific casket, burial container, transportation, obituary, burial, cremation, or other services. If the funeral home accepts payment but fails to provide what was agreed upon, the family may have a breach of contract claim in addition to any negligence claim supported by the facts.
One of the most important parts of a funeral home negligence case is determining exactly who caused the mistake. Though families may primarily communicate with the funeral home, several separate businesses and professionals may be involved behind the scenes, and more than one of them may share legal responsibility. Some potentially liable parties can include the following:
Yes, you may be able to sue a funeral home in Florida if its negligence, misconduct, or failure to follow an agreement caused legally recognized harm. That being said, the precise type of claim available will depend on what the funeral home did, who was involved, and the damages the family suffered. Some potential causes of action may include the following:
You should also understand that filing a regulatory complaint and filing a civil lawsuit are two different things. A family may report a funeral establishment or licensee to the Florida Department of Financial Services, but disciplinary action taken by the state is generally intended to enforce professional regulations. A separate civil claim may be needed to pursue financial compensation for emotional distress, additional funeral expenses, lost property, therapy costs, or other damages.
A family pursuing a funeral home negligence claim must establish the same basic elements required in other Florida negligence cases. Simply being dissatisfied with a funeral service is usually not enough. Instead, there must be evidence that the funeral provider failed to meet a legal or professional duty and that this failure caused actual harm. A claimant will typically need to prove the following:
To have a successful claim against a funeral home, you and your attorney will need to gather and present evidence as effectively as possible. Allegations of funeral home negligence or misconduct are incredibly serious, so you can expect the funeral home to hire a team of lawyers who will aggressively defend it. That’s why you need a funeral home negligence lawyer who will fight back. That said, some of the most useful forms of evidence in these cases are as follows:
Under the current version of Florida Statute § 95.11, an action founded on negligence generally must be filed within two years. That said, it is always best to file your claim sooner, rather than later. The sooner you speak with an attorney, the sooner we can begin fighting for the justice you deserve.
Ultimately, if you believe your family is a victim of funeral home negligence, you need a lawyer you can depend on. Here at The Finizio Law Group, we take our jobs and our duty to you, the client, extremely seriously. Contact our firm for a free consultation so we can discuss your case, and, from there, begin building a comprehensive strategy on your behalf.
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