News
Funeral Home Faces Lawsuit After Losing Body

Funeral Home Faces Lawsuit After Losing Body


Furious family members are suing a funeral home in Ohio after it misplaced the body of a dead relative. According to the family, Smoot Funeral Services, part of the Edwards Funeral Home company in Columbus, lost the body of Nivina Cargill and then attempted to substitute the corpse with another body dressed in her clothes.

After arguing with staff at the funeral home that the body is the casket was not Nivina, funeral director Monique Smoot eventually checked the nametag on the body and realized that it was indeed a different person.

The family have now brought legal proceedings against all of the parties who were involved in the funeral service and are seeking $25,000 in punitive and compensatory damages. The lawsuit states that some in the family have “lost sleep and suffered nightmares as a result of the defendants’ conduct” and that the “defendants destroyed the clothing of the late Nivina Cargill while attempting to put the clothes on the wrong corpse,” Nivina’s sister, Pamela Merritt, said: “Our whole concern is, we don’t want this to happen to another family.