CHARLESTON – A cemetery company has been named in yet another lawsuit, this time alleging it buried a man in the wrong plot.
Sharon Halstead filed her complaint May 8 in Kanawha Circuit Court against Cornerstone Family Services of West Virginia and StoneMor Partners.
According to the complaint, Halstead purchased two burial plots and two vaults next to each other at Kanawha Valley Memory Gardens for herself and her husband in 2013. She says she selected the exact plots she wanted from a map provided by the cemetery office, and she made payments on the plots for several years. A few years later, she purchased a third plot and vault next to the other two plots for her son.
She says she never received copies of signed documents from the defendants showing documentation of the sales or any deeds.
Halstead’s husband Terry Wayne Halstead died in June 2022. At his funeral, the cemetery asked her if the graveyard service could be in the mausoleum because it had been raining and the ground around the plot was wet and uneven, making walking difficult. She agreed, so she didn’t see the actual burial plot at that time.
About a month after her husband’s death, Halstead went to visit his grave. But she couldn’t find it.
“The plot that plaintiff purchased did not appear to be a grave, and she could not find where he was buried,” the complaint states. “Plaintiff found a grounds worker and asked him if there was a grave at their plots, and he said no.”
When she asked the man where her husband was, the worker said he didn’t know. No one was working in the cemetery office, and she couldn’t reach anyone for days.
In August 2022, Halstead says she was told her husband had been buried in the wrong plot.
“No explanation was provided,” the complaint states.
A StoneMor representative told Halstead they could move her husband’s body to the correct plot. But when she talked to the funeral director, he described the process and advised her it would be too traumatic and upsetting to her.
“When a body is disinterred, the vault often breaks open and the body is exposed,” the complaint states. “He (the funeral director) also said that she would be required to be present and would likely see and smell her husband’s decomposing body. He did not recommend moving her husband.”
Halstead also says moving her plot next to her husband’s current plot was an option, but the headstone would have to be changed because their positions would be reversed from the original plan.
She says she hasn’t been able to reach anyone with the defendant companies to discuss the issue, and she still hasn’t received any documentation about the original plot she purchased or about the plot where her husband is actually buried. She says her son no longer wants to be buried at the cemetery “since it seems to be so poorly managed.”
Halstead says she has repeatedly tried to contact the defendants, but calls and messages are not returned. She says she even stopped payment on the headstone to see if someone would call her. When they did call about the missed payments, she explained the situation and was told they would be back in touch. But Halstead says she never heard back.
She says she believes the cemetery employee lied about the condition of the ground on the day of her husband’s funeral so she would not discover the problem.
Halstead accuses the defendants of breach of express warranties, breach of implied warranties of merchantability and title, breach of duty of good faith, common law fraud, constructive fraud, negligent misrepresentation, negligence, unfair or deceptive acts or practices, breach of contract and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
She says she has suffered monetary loss, emotional and mental distress, loss of use, aggravation, anxiety, annoyance and inconvenience.
Halstead seeks compensatory damages, punitive damages, consequential and incidental damages, statutory damages, court costs, attorney fees and other relief.
She is being represented by Kristina Thomas Whiteaker of The Grubb Law Group in Charleston. The case has been assigned to Circuit Judge Carrie Webster.
StoneMor has been named in a host of other lawsuits filed in recent years in West Virginia.
Earlier this year, a group said the cemetery company is trespassing on its funeral home properties.
In December, a Cabell County man said the company buried his wife improperly, possibly damaging her vault and making it impossible for him to be buried alongside her.
There were two complaints filed against the company in December in Kanawha County.
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 StoneMor 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. In 2021, a woman sued a StoneMor facility in Cabell County after her sister’s casket floated to the surface days after her funeral.
In 2020, a Mercer County man says the company told him the graves and headstone his father had purchased in 1996 “did not exist” and forced him to sign a waiver of rights form before the company would bury his father at the cemetery at all. He ended up being late to his father’s visitation because he had to deal with the issues.
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 23-C-394
