California Mortuary Admits It Buried Wrong Woman Despite Husband’s Objections

After living with the same woman for 51 years, Evan Davidson probably can recognize his own wife. However, when the management of Simpson Family Mortuary of Inglewood showed him Darlene Davidson, 82, in her casket, Evan Davidson promptly said that is not my wife. However, the mortuary insisted that he was wrong and she simply looked different due to embalming. They insisted on burying her and later learned that in fact it was a different woman.

Three days after the burial, another family objected that the body in their casket was not their loved one. Davidson was asked to come to the funeral home and he identified his wife.

The mortuary has offered to exhume the body and pay the costs of burying both women. It will be fortunate if that is the full costs of this negligence. There are extremely strong claims of negligent infliction of emotional distress and negligence (as well as mishandling of a corpse). The lack of basic precautions to avoid such mistakes is breathtaking. This would seem one of the most basic obligations of a funeral home in controlling the handling of bodies.

Mortuary spokesman Reginald Black insisted that “Our main concern is for these people to receive the dignity and respect they deserve, and put the individual to rest. We are not sweeping it under the rug.” True, though you did not sweep it under the rug originally, you buried it under six feet of dirt.

Source: LA Times