CHARLESTON – A Maryland couple says an embattled Kanawha County cemetery placed another deceased person in a mausoleum plot they purchased for another family member.
Cynthia and Bobby Kaib filed their complaint December 15 in Kanawha Circuit Court against StoneMor GP LLC, StoneMor Operating LLC and Cornerstone Family Services of West Virginia LLC doing business as Kanawha Valley Memorial Gardens, which is located in Glasgow.
According to the complaint, the couple bought two tandem mausoleum plots on August 18, 2016. One of the tandem plots was meant to be for the plaintiffs, and the other was for Cynthia Kaib’s father, who had just passed away, and another family member. Her father, Robert J.Withrow, was buried in one of the plots shortly after the purchase.
On April 3, 2021, the Kaibs “learned, to their horror, that defendants had inexplicably placed another deceased person into the mausoleum with Mr. Withrow,” the complaint states. “No excuse whatsoever exists for the negligent and inappropriate acts of defendants.”
The Kaibs say they immediately informed the defendants of the situation and requested they honor the contract, remedy the “egregious negligence and breach” and remove the unrelated decedent from the plot.
“Defendants, even after the involvement of the West Virginia Attorney General’s office, remain intransigent and inexplicably unwilling to remedy their wrong and remove the improperly placed decedent from Mr. and Mrs. Kaib’s family’s mausoleum plots,” the complaint states. “Defendants … have even assured Mr. and Mrs. Kaib that the matter would be remedied and defendants would fix and remedy their mistake …
“However, as of the date of the filing of this complaint, defendants have refused to remedy their wrong and correct the situation.”
The complaint also says the defendants have refused to enter into or issue a Disinterment Order which would remove the wrongfully placed decedent from the plot.
“Withrow is buried next to a stranger in … family mausoleum plots and in no way, manner or form did (the family) agree or acquiesce to having a stranger placed into their family mausoleum plots,” the complaint states. “Mr. and Mrs. Kaib and their loved ones were horrified upon learning what had happened as a result of the careless acts of the defendants. Indeed, the entire Kaib and Withrow families were traumatized by the way their loved one was treated.”
The Kaibs accuse the defendants of negligence, negligent infliction of emotional distress, breach of contract and specific performance of the contract. They seek compensatory damages for past and future emotional distress, annoyance, anxiety, aggravation and inconvenience. They also the immediate removal of the body of the decedent who has been wrongfully placed into the family mausoleum plot, refund of the amount of the contractual agreement, pre- and post-judgment interests, court costs, attorney fees, punitive damages and other damages.
The couple is being represented by Shawn R. Romano and Miles B. Berger of Romano & Associates in Charleston.
StoneMor has been named in a host of other lawsuits filed in recent years in West Virginia.
In 2013, a StoneMor cemetery in Beckley was accused of selling plots twice. In 2019, a man filed a lawsuit against a StoneMore cemetery in Logan County for alleged grave desecration.
In 2020, a couple sued after an unknown body was found in another plot at Kanawha Valley Memory Gardens purchased 43 years earlier. Last year, a woman sued a StoneMore facility in Cabell County after her sister’s casket floated to the surface days after her funeral.
The company also has been named as defendants in a personal injury lawsuit by an employee, a discrimination lawsuit and a wrongful termination lawsuit.
Kanawha Circuit Court case number 22-C-1024