A lawsuit from a former employee at Eternal Hills Cemetery and Mortuary accuses the mortuary of several disturbing practices including double-selling cemetery plots and permitting employees to look at deceased people whose bodies were brought in after horrendous accidents or suicides. The cemetery, which is the largest in Northern San Diego County, is owned by Houston-based Service Corp. International (SCI). Our source for this blog was this news report in the North County Times.
The former employee, Angela Maney-Sorrell, sued the company in October alleging that she was wrongfully terminated after pointing out problems at the funeral home. She had been an employee there for 21 years. Funeral home administrators have issued a statement saying that Maney-Sorrell is a “disgruntled employee” and have denied all the allegations.
However, the allegations leveled in this lawsuit against the funeral home, are deeply disturbing to say the least – selling plots to illegal immigrants in an area intended for military families; moving cremated remains without families’ permission; double-selling plots; and permitting employees to enter the preparation area to view people who had committed suicide or died in horrible auto accidents.
There is no question that if these allegations are true, the actions of this San Diego Mortuary are cruel and extremely disrespectful to the deceased and their families. Our firm is representing several clients who have had similar funeral home abuse experiences or worse. Shoddy embalming, double-selling plots, burying two or more bodies in the same plot, lack of concern for family members and insensitive handling of the deceased are all common complaints we hear about funeral home, mortuaries and cemeteries in Southern California.
Consumers do not deserve this, period. Funeral and burial costs have consistently gone up over the last five years and families who spend thousands of dollars to put their loved ones to rest with dignity, do not deserve to be treated in this manner. Our firm is determined to go after these unethical businesses that put profits over people and shortchange their customers at every opportunity they get. We will hold these wrongdoers accountable for their actions.