Revoked license puts funeral home in limbo
Former director Franklin Lambert lost his license over accusations that he stacked containers of bodies
“You’re going after a license that is innocent.” Franklin Lambert
Franklin Lambert lost his cremationist license in 2011. Earlier this year, he lost his funeral-directing license over allegations that he stacked containers of bodies and failed to refrigerate some bodies at the crematory where he served as business manager.
Now Lambert could lose ownership of his Valley funeral home.
The state board that regulates the funeral industry is reviewing whether Lambert should still be able to own Family Burial and Cremation in Mesa, and the board is planning a formal hearing on its license.
Because Lambert’s funeral directing license has been revoked, “we feel like the law may mean you cannot own a funeral home,” said Kristina Dyrr, chairwoman of the Arizona Board of Funeral Directors and Embalmers, on Tuesday during a meeting to discuss the case.
At the meeting, the daughter of a woman whose remains were handled by Lambert’s crematory in 2011 pleaded with the board to deny his funeral-home license.
Stella Munoz sat in the front row, holding a photo of her deceased parents, Rachel and Thomas, and a handwritten sign protesting Lambert. She sued Lambert and later reached an outof-court settlement over the crematory’s handling of her mother’s remains.
“We just ask that you deny his licenses, so he doesn’t do this to other families,” she told board members before returning to her seat, weeping.
Lambert said the funeral board is going after a business license that has no infractions or complaints against it. He compared his situation to a police officer issuing a ticket to a car parked at a meter before time has expired.
“You’re going after a license that is innocent,” he told the board. “You’ve already taken everything from me.”
Assistant Attorney General Thomas Raine, who represents the board, said the purpose of the hearing will be to look at the disciplinary statutes. The board could deny the funeral home license, refuse to renew it or consider other disciplinary action, he said.
Lambert first got into trouble with the state funeral board eight years ago, when the Mesa crematory he owned, All State Crematory, ran out of refrigeration space because of an unexpected influx of bodies.
Lambert told investigators he had to rotate the bodies in and out of the cooler, storing some inside the crema
tory and others in a van. Funeral board rules say a crematory must refrigerate human remains at temperatures of 38 degrees Fahrenheit or lower, or return them to the funeral home.
A repairman who was contacted to make repairs on the crematory van in April 2011 told investigators he saw boxes of human remains inside the parked van. The smell made him sick. Inside the crematory, he said he saw containers of bodies stacked at least three deep, and maggots and cremains on the floor.
The repairman alerted a TV news station, ABC 15 Arizona (KNXV), that human remains were being kept in a van overnight and that the crematory facility was unsanitary.
The news station broadcast a story and contacted the funeral board, which opened an investigation. The board found that Lambert violated state laws and board rules governing the storage and respectful disposition of human remains.
Lambert told funeral board investigators that he picked up more bodies from funeral homes than he had space to refrigerate. But, he said, he thought the influx was only a temporary problem that he could manage, so he began rotating bodies in and out of the cooler.
Lambert admitted to investigators that at one point, he had 25 human remains in the crematory cooler, 37 inside the crematory and seven in the van.
He defended his crematory’s reputation in a hearing before the board in 2011, acknowledging he could have done things differently. “I like to be serviceoriented and help when I can. So that became my downfall,” he told board members, according to a hearing transcript.
Then-Board President Katherine Shindel said she had “never seen such egregious behavior” in her seven years as a funeral board member. She said family members expected their loved ones would be treated with dignity and care.
“They could not have imagined that you would let their loved ones rot like spoiled meat in the heat,” she said.
At least one board member, James Ahearne, who is still a member of the funeral board, wanted to revoke Lambert’s funeral directing license as well as his cremationist license in 2011. But Shindel said she didn’t want to deprive Lambert of his ability to earn a living.
Board members were advised by their attorney that to go beyond revoking Lambert’s cremationist license, they would need to open a separate complaint against his funeral-directing license.
The board ultimately revoked Lambert’s cremationist license and the license for All State Crematory.
But Lambert kept his funeral-directing license and continued to work in the industry, becoming business manager of another crematory in Mesa, Saguaro Valley Cremation Services.
Four years later, he would find himself before the funeral board again, facing similar allegations.
The funeral board received complaints in 2015 from two owners of a Valley funeral home who alleged cardboard containers containing bodies inside Saguaro Valley were double stacked and outside the refrigeration unit.
One of the complaints also alleged that Lambert was observed double stacking containers in the back of a van with no rack, divider or support between the containers.
The complaints triggered an investigation by the funeral board. When an investigator visited the crematory, she said she saw containers double stacked outside the refrigeration unit.
After a hearing, the funeral board voted in 2016 revoke the funeral-directing licenses of Lambert and two other employees at the facility.
The employees appealed the board’s decision to Maricopa County Superior Court and then to the Arizona Court of Appeals, saying the discipline was “unreasonably disproportionate to the offense.” Both courts upheld the disciplinary sanctions.
The employees contended in court records that because no Arizona statute or board rule prohibits stacking that doing so didn’t amount to “misconduct.”
But the Arizona Court of Appeals, in a decision issued in October 2018, said there was substantial evidence that stacking containers is against funeral industry standards. The court also said there was evidence that the crematory occasionally kept containers of bodies outside of refrigeration in violation of state law.
The employees appealed to the Arizona Supreme Court, which recently declined to review the case and cleared the way for his funeral-directing license to be revoked on May 20.
The legal wrangling over Lambert’s funeral-directing license has taken years, something that has frustrated Stella Munoz.
She said it’s time for him to find another profession. “He’s a repeat offender, and he’s doing wrong,” she said.