HUNTINGTON – A Milton man says a cemetery company buried his wife improperly, possibly damaging her vault and making it impossible for him to be buried alongside her.
Ralph Hutchinson filed his complaint against StoneMor Partners and Cornerstone Family Services of West Virginia, both doing business as Forest Memorial Park in Cabell Circuit Court.
According to the complaint, Hutchinson entered into a Precomputed Retail Installment Sales Contract with Forest Memorial Park on February 21, 1964, for the purchase of two cemetery spaces of the buyer’s choice, two superior vaults with installation included and a double bronze marker with vase and base installed.
On June 12, 2015, Hutchinson’s wife Marylou passed away. He presented his preneed contact to agents of the defendants and requested his wife be interred as noted in the contract.
After burial, he says he noticed the ground at the grave site was settling in a peculiar manner that seemed to indicate her vault was in the wrong location. When he called attention to the settling, he says the defendants told him everything was proper.
When he later purchased a large double headstone for the burial spaces, he says the defendants poured the concrete base for it directly across the vault.
“Upon finding the concrete base improperly poured, plaintiff and defendants’ agents met at the grave site and discovered that the vault was in the wrong location and had not been buried deeply enough,” the complaint states. “Plaintiff again protested to defendants that the vault seemed to be improperly placed across both burial spaces and was again assured by defendants that Mrs. Hutchinson was buried in the proper location despite multiple employees of defendants having witnessed the misplacement.
“Plaintiff has struggled for years with the suspicion that if he were to die he could not be buried alongside his wife according to his wishes and the burial spaces purchased and selected by plaintiff.”
He also says the defendants have removed the concrete base, possibly damaging his wife’s vault. And after more requests to have her buried properly, Hutchinson says the defendants have “utterly ignored” his protests.
Hutchinson says an independent expert in the field of vault location confirmed that the vault was not buried in the appropriate location and wouldn’t allow for him to buried beside her.
He says he then sent written requests to the defendants on July 20, August 3 and August 19 of last year to uphold their contractual duties. He says they have ignored his requests.
Hutchinson accuses the defendants of negligence, breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty.
He seeks compensatory damages, punitive damages, attorney fees, court costs and other relief. He also seeks an order requiring the defendants to disinter Mrs. Hutchinson’s vault for inspection and proper re-interment.
Hutchinson is being represented by Thomas P. Boggs of Duffield Lovejoy & Boggs in Huntington. The case has been assigned to Circuit Judge Christopher Chiles.
StoneMor has been named in a host of other lawsuits filed in recent years in West Virginia.
Last month, there were two complaints filed against the company.
In one, a Maryland couple accused the company of placing another deceased person in a mausoleum plot they had purchased for another family member. The second one filed five days later accuses the company of placing the remains of a woman in a mausoleum crypt that had been purchased by others.
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 StoneMor 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.
Cabell Circuit Court case number 22-C-361