Mortuary told to pay kin $66K for mix-up
Civil trial was second for funeral home that misidentified remains
For the second time this year, a Houston funeral home was found negligent for confusing the remains of two elderly women in 2014 and ordered to pay damages to a second set of adult children.
A Harris County jury last week determined that Bruce Lawson and Karen Lawson should receive $33,000 each for the mishandling of their deceased mother, Edna Lawson, by Mabrie Memorial Mortuary.
Mark Grace, the eldest sibling, reached a confidential settlement before trial that he’s “pleased with,” according to his lawyer Marcus Spagnoletti.
Attorneys for Bruce and Karen Lawson could not be reached Tuesday for comment.
Nearly two years ago, the body of 89-year-old Pearlie Jean Deason was buried at Houston National Cemetery with 81-year-old Edna Lawson’s late husband, a World War II veteran.
Funeral home officials discovered the error when they found Lawson’s remains while preparing for Deason’s funeral. Both women died in July 2014.
An August 2014 statement from the mortuary admitted mixing up the bodies and extended apologies to the families.
The children of both women sued in October 2014. Both trials were held in the courtroom of Harris County Civil Court Judge Sylvia Matthews.
At least one relative from the Lawson family viewed and approved Deason’s remains before she was buried in their mother’s grave. Edna Lawson’s remains eventually were placed in the correct final resting place after a service that was less elaborate than the initial funeral.
In February, a jury awarded Deason’s four children $35,400 — or $8,850 each — after hearing about their emotional suffering at trial. The siblings experienced having their mother’s body retrieved from another woman’s grave and were forced to hold a funeral with “decayed remains” that had been wrongly interred in the heat for two days.
In that trial, Mabrie funeral director Cynthia Jones said the mistake happened when another undertaker failed to carefully check the ID tags on the decedents.
She testified earlier this year that Mabrie had no written policies for employees and operated under verbal directives. Jones also took the witness stand in this month’s trial.
Bruce Lawson said he was not satisfied with the decision rendered during the four-day trial that began on June 20 because he doesn’t feel that the funeral home has made policy changes that provide greater protection for consumers for the “iron-clad” identification of corpses.
“That’s the main reason why I feel like the verdict should have been higher,” the 55-year-old said Tuesday, adding that legal fees will be deducted from his award.
The Texas Funeral Service Commission sanctioned Mabrie in December 2014 with a warning letter, but did not impose a fine.
The agency found that the funeral home was negligent by not checking the ID tags on both women but also determined that two of Lawson’s children viewed what was presented as her body “several times” and never notified undertakers that the decedent was not their mother.