Or, so says a family’s suit against a funeral home and crematorium.  It never ceases to crack me up how some people can take a modest, legitimate claim and blow it up into a claim for financial independence.

53-year-old Pamela Grant died unattended, was autopsied and later cremated despite a fax by the funeral home to the crematorium instructing it to hold off.  You see, the family says they wanted to view the body before cremation and place mementos with it.  They were deprived of that chance and filed suit against the funeral home for $3M and the crematorium for $450K.

Now, there’s certainly a legitimate complaint here but I see little to justify the sky-high demand.  Naturally, the plaintiffs’ attorney is high-minded saying “his clients sued because they wanted to send a message to the businesses that their behavior was unacceptable.”  Translation: it’s not about the money.

The jury got it right, awarding $48K from the crematorium to the Grant children and nothing from the funeral home.  That’s a far cry from the $3.5M demand and right in line with what the crematorium’s defense counsel suggested to the jury.  (“Missed goodbye to cost crematory, not Oregon City funeral home”, OregonLive.com, Aug. 15).

I’ve finished my week as guest blogger and will pass the torch back to Walter Olson.  Walter, thank you again for the opportunity here on Overlawyered.

Filed under: not about the money