Boynton Beach cemetery buried a stranger in their family plot, couple says in lawsuit

A family plot at Eternal Light Memorial Gardens in Boynton Beach has a stranger buried in it.

While not the fault of the soul trying to rest in peace, the cemetery double-sold the space and must move the remains, Stanton Schwartz and his wife, Susan Gad Schwartz, say in a lawsuit.

Eternal Light wants to resolve the dispute “amicably” and has offered Stanton Schwartz another grave site, but the couple rejected that idea. After all, they purchased four adjacent plots in order to be together with her deceased parents as they were in life and to honor a pact that they be buried side by side.

“I should not be in this terrible position where my wish to be buried together with my husband and my parents has been destroyed,” Susan Gad Schwartz said.

Her husband’s plot is the one occupied by someone else, whom the cemetery won’t identify due to its policy that “all client information remains confidential,” said Claire Piché, area managing partner for operations at Eternal Light.

“This is a very sensitive matter, and all this anguish could have been avoided had Eternal

Light lived up to its motto of ‘service you can trust,’ ” said Stanton Schwartz, 76.

“In direct contravention of these final arrangements and Plaintiffs’ ownership rights,” according to the lawsuit, Eternal Light violated the Florida Funeral, Cemetery and Consumer Services Act and “permitted the unauthorized remains to be interred in Mr. Schwartz’s grave space. This wrongdoing was concealed by Defendant, who had knowledge but failed to promptly notify all interested parties despite its legal obligations.”

The Schwartzes noticed something awry during a visit to the grave of her parents, Joseph and Evelyn Greenblatt. Her father died in 2016 at age 96, and her mother died in 2008. Their gravestone, which reads “Your life gave us meaning,” sits next to a bench inscribed with the Greenblatt name.

When the couple inquired at the cemetery office, an employee pulled out a map, searched records and assured them their two plots had not been disturbed. But when friends of the family visited weeks later and also became suspicious, they were told Stanton Schwartz’s plot, pur

Evelyn and Joseph Greenblatt are buried in the same plot. The couple’s daughter and son-in-law have sued the cemetery, alleging it double-sold the son-in-law’s plot. They want to be buried next to the Greenblatts.