PRINCETON – The family of a women who died in 2017 says the cemetery was unable to bury her in the plot she had purchased more than 20 years ago.
Isaac E. Reed, administrator of the estate of Betty Lee Price, filed the complaint in Mercer Circuit Court against SCI West Virginia Funeral Services Inc. doing business as Monte Vista Park Cemetery.
According to the complaint, Reed was the lifelong companion of Price, who he describes as being “devoted to her family and to the memory of her deceased mother, Roberta Price.” She wanted her final resting place to be beside her mother’s grave, and she purchased that plot on May 29, 1999. She was so proud of having secured her final resting place that she had a photograph made of herself and Reed at the grave site.
Betty Lee Price died July 17, 2017. Her funeral was conducted July 21, 2017. When family and friends went to the cemetery, Reed says it was “immediately apparent” the funeral pavilion and chairs placed by cemetery employees were not at the correct burial site beside Price’s mother’s grave and not even in the Price family plot.
“Plaintiff and her family did not allow the casket to be buried in a wrong plot, and the funeral home employees had to return the remains to the funeral home, aborting the interment ceremony,” the complaint states. “Subsequently, Monte Vista employees attempted to locate the correct plot, using maps and probes to sound for other interments. At length, a substitute plot was designated and excavated, located near, but not in the Price family plot, and shown on the cemetery maps as a ‘walkway.’”
Price was laid to rest the following day.
The complaint accuses the defendants of breach of contract, damages, annoyance, inconvenience and unacceptable injuries to the family’s peace of mind at a time of grief and emotional turmoil.
The estate seeks a refund of the entire purchase price of the plot plus interest, compensatory damages, punitive damages and other relief.
Reed is being represented by John W. Feuchtenberger of Feuchtenberger & Barringer Legal Corporation in Princeton. The case has been assigned to Circuit Judge Mark Wills.
Mercer Circuit Court case number 20-C-231