Cemetery Abuse – Kavod v'Nichum – Jewish Funerals, Burial and Mourning

Eden cemetery trial set for May …plaintiffs presented sufficient disputable facts to proceed with the trial to determine whether Service Corp. International (SCI), owners of Eden Memorial Park, moved graves without telling family members, broke concrete coffin containers and then dumped the debris and human remains, and engaged in illegal practices to squeeze graves into spaces that are too small. SCI purchased Eden in 1985. About 40,000 people are buried at the 72-acre facility at Sepulveda Boulevard and Rinaldi Street, which has been in operation for more than 50 years. In November 2010, Mohr sanctioned SCI for tampering with evidence, after the plaintiffs showed that SCI had cleaned the cemetery dump in late 2009, soon after the judge ordered Eden to preserve all evidence related to the case. Attorney Calls State Report Exonerating Eden Memorial Shoddy and Inadequate California’s Cemetery and Funeral Bureau reviewed five years worth of audits and a June 2008 investigation into similar allegations and concluded that there is not enough evidence to support the claims. “The kinds of things that are being alleged are not easily hidden from view,” said Russ Heimerich, spokesman for the California Department of Consumer Affairs, which oversees the Cemetery and Funeral Bureau. “If thousands of bodies had been removed and the graves desecrated, there would be evidence of cracked or missing headstones, a much larger spoils pile [where excess dirt is dumped], and there might be bones in that spoils pile. Those are the kinds of things our auditors would catch.” Class Action Lawsuit Sanction for Suppressing Evidence	Los Angeles, CA
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Eden cemetery trial set for May

Attorney Calls State Report Exonerating Eden Memorial Shoddy and Inadequate