A New York family is suing a funeral home after they claim the director put the wrong body in their 87-year-old mother’s plot and refused to accept he had made a mistake.
According to CBS News, 11 siblings are suing Hasgill Funeral Services in Long Island after they discovered the body the director placed in their mother Sadie Williams’ plot was not her, based on the way the corpse looked and markings that were missing.
“I stood at the top of the steps with [director] Joe Slinger and said, ‘That’s not my mother.’ He said, ‘Of course it is,’” revealed Salimah Lee. “I got to the coffin, first thing I noticed, that’s not my mother and she was wearing a child’s watch.”
Lee added, “I said, ‘Mom has a mole.’ I just kept picking out different things. And he stood at the top of the steps of the funeral home, laughing, going, ‘Oh, I hear that all the time. They tell me. People say that all the time. The embalming fluid smooths them out.’”
The Muslim family was supposed to complete their mother's burial in 72 hours, but according to the news outlet, it took 22 days because of the funeral home’s mistake. It took three days before the funeral home director accepted that his business put the wrong body in the plot and retrieved the correct one.
“They questioned it and they questioned it and they questioned it, and the funeral director insisted he was right,” said Phil Rizzuto, the family’s attorney explained. “It is unconscionable, how such egregious actions can take place. The most disturbing thing about this case is that the family pointed out the error and Mr. Haskill-Slinger refused to even consider the possibility of making a mistake.”
Because of the ordeal, the family is seeking $33 million in compensatory damages on behalf of Williams’ 11 children and $55 million in punitive damages, totaling $88 million.
