Funeral home feud leads to defamation suit
There’s a funeral home feud in Albuquerque and it’s getting mean.
On one side is Riverside Funeral Home owner Charles Finegan, who lives in Albuquerque.
On the other, Jay Dodds, a Houston man who founded the Texas company that over the past six years has acquired 14 homegrown New Mexico funeral homes and cemeteries, along with a dozen more around the nation.
Together, the two men, who have known each other for decades, have turned to the obituary pages in the Journal and other outlets to air their grievances.
And now Dodds has sued Finegan, who the suit claims has attacked Dodds in social media posts, has made false claims about his business and has ultimately brought shame to the mortuary profession by insulting members of the community they both claim to serve.
Obit pages
It’s common for funeral homes to purchase advertisements on newspaper obituary pages. For months, Finegan has paid for ads “appealing to those people who are trying to keep their money local and support their local economy” by saying his services are affordable and by outing certain funeral homes as being owned by an out-of-state company.
That company is The Signature Group, which owns the Daniels Family Funeral Services chain in Albuquerque and a handful of other funeral homes in the state.
Mark Shalz, the man brought to New Mexico in 2011 to run the companies purchased by The Signature Group, said that, while their funeral homes are owned by an out-of-state company, the ads are false because they make it seem like the company is a heartless corporation “divorced” from the communities they serve.
He said that couldn’t be further from the truth. Nearly all of the employees who worked at the purchased funeral homes are still employed there, and there are only four company administrators and one outside investor, and they all care about their communities, Shalz said.
Shalz said it is Finegan who is the uncaring business owner, and he and Dodds have Finegan’s racist and crude Facebook posts that they say prove it.
Earlier this month, Dodds’ company took out a newspaper advertisement in the Journal directing readers to a website his company operates exposing those Facebook posts made by Finegan targeting, among other groups, Catholics, poor people, homosexuals and Democrats. Some of the posts use profanity and racial slurs. Others slam people on welfare programs. Some posts and texts they attribute to Finegan target Dodds and his wife with profanity and threats.
“Enough is enough, and (the lawsuit) is the starting point to stop the nonsense and the attacks, not only on our company and Jay Dodds, but on our community as well. It’s incredibly offensive to almost every part of our community,” Shalz said. “We don’t talk about our community like he does.”
The website, Shalz said, is so people can “fully understand Mr. Finegan’s true thoughts and feelings about our community.”
Finegan doesn’t deny the Facebook posts are his, but he said they should not be taken as an indication that he doesn’t care about his community or do a good job providing affordable services. He said his father is Catholic and he employs, is friends with or is related to a diverse group of people.
“I’m not a bad person. Do I drink too much sometimes? Sure. This is a very special business, and I like to go out and have a good time and act silly. Do I get out of line sometimes? Do I get loud? Sure, but as far as my personal life, I’ve got a personal life. I’m an opinionated man. I’m allowed to have my opinion,” Finegan said.
And he said Dodds is just as free to keep up his website and sue.
“For a while there I was worried about it, but it’s public knowledge and if that’s what they need to do, then let them do it. I don’t have any control over the way they are going to conduct their business. This is America. They are entitled to do what they want to do, the way I’m entitled to say what I want to say,” Finegan said.
Defamation lawsuit
Dodds and his company filed a defamation and false light lawsuit in 2nd Judicial District Court in late August. They claim that Finegan’s advertisements, Facebook posts and texts to Dodds have impacted their business.
The lawsuit is an “effort to not only recover for the harms they have suffered, but to ensure that Mr. Finegan is held fully accountable for his conduct that is offensive to the entire profession,” reads the lawsuit, filed by attorney Luis Robles.
Finegan said the lawsuit is an attempt to take away his share of business.
“I’m taking a huge part of their market share and they don’t like it,” Finegan said. “They are going way overboard on this thing. But I’m going to continue to provide economical cremation and funeral home services. They can spend their money how they like.”
Shalz said the lawsuit is not a way to push Finegan out the business.
The lawsuit seeks money payments to cover damages and to serve as punishment for Finegan.
“We are not throwing mud back and forth; he is. What else are we to do? We filed the lawsuit, that doesn’t mean we are throwing mud back and forth,” Shalz said. “I can’t overemphasize, people in our community, they turn to our profession on the worst day of their life. As caregivers we help them up, we don’t knock them down. There is a clear difference between who we are and who Mr. Finegan is.”