California Death Care Attorneys

Our Death Care attorneys represent family members of a deceased relative who were injured by cemeteries and mortuaries.  The California State Cemetery and Funeral Bureau rightly notes that “the death of a loved one is undoubtedly the most traumatic experience any of us will ever encounter.”  As such, California has extensive laws and regulations governing:

• Funerals
• Cemeteries
• Crematories
• Cremated remains disposers
• Cemetery brokers, salespersons and managers

Liability of Cemeteries and Mortuaries

Cemeteries and Mortuaries may be liable to family members of a deceased person for damages if they commit any of the following acts:

• Interring decedents’ remains in grave sites already previously occupied by other decedents’ remains
• Disinterring decedents’ remains and commingling them with other decedents’ remains
• Converting single-use graves to multiple graves
• Performing multiple cremations Improperly disposing of cremains
• Disturbing previously interred remains and failing to re-inter all of the remains
• Selling cemetery plots when none were available
•  Failing to maintain a cemetery in good conditions
• Failing to conduct funerals or burials in compliance with industry and legal standards
• Embezzling the Endowment Care Fund

California law provides that the Death Care industry undertakes to provide appropriate and dignified services of the type that bereaved family members normally anticipate.  Those services are not limited to conduct of, or facilitating the conduct of, ceremonial or funeral rites, but extend through arranging the commitment of the remains through burial or encryptment, or alternatively cremation and inurnment or other disposition of the ashes of the decedent for whose family the services were performed.

If a cemetery or a mortuary fails to provide appropriate and dignified services, or if a decedent’s remains are mishandled, bereaved family members may recover monetary damages.  California law provides that the decedent’s spouse, children, parents, siblings, grandparents, and grandchildren have standing sue.

Contact an Experienced Death Care Attorney

The Death Care attorneys at Arias Ozzello & Gignac can help you in these most difficult circumstances involving death care.  For death care legal advice, contact one of our sophisticated lawyers today.