Texas Floods Surfaces Casket of Man’s Wife, Sues Funeral Home
A Houston man has filed a lawsuit with a funeral home in charge of burying his wife’s body, who was buried in 2007, after the casket was found lifted from the burial plot and washed away. Richard Lee, 65, is going up against Robinson Funeral Home because the $11,000 vault should not have been affected in the flooding and the funeral home is forcing Lee to pay a discounted burial fee to put it back into the ground. The casket was found along a walking trail more than 150 feet away from its plot. The suit is accusing the funeral home of negligence.
Essentially, people that have buried family members through Robinson Funeral Home may not have been getting the quality they paid for. KHOU explains that Lee and his attorney is concerned that other gravesites could be affected. “[Attorney Annie] McAdams and her expert allege that the cement vault used to protect the casket was not sealed properly and might not have had the required holes in the bottom to let water go in and out and keep the casket in the ground in the event of a flood.”
A rival service, the George Lewis Funeral Home, has offered to bury Lee’s wife, who passed away at 57, for free. It is currently unknown if they are allowing it to happen at Riceville Cemetary where she was originally buried. Lee wants Carolyn Joyce Fobbs-Lee to be buried there because it’s close to where they went to church for over 30 years.
