Family sues funeral home for $50M after wrong body placed in casket, nearly buried in mother’s grave

FORT LEE, New Jersey — A household is suing a New Jersey funeral house after it was revealed mid-ceremony that their beloved one wasn’t the individual contained in the casket.

The household of 93-year-old Kyung Ja Kim has filed a $50 million lawsuit in opposition to the Central Funeral Residence of New Jersey and Blackley Funeral Residence and Cremation Providers, Inc. of Ridgefield for placing one other girl’s physique within their mom’s casket.

Kyung Ja handed away in November 2021 and her physique was taken by the funeral house to be ready for a conventional Korean funeral that was to be held three days later.

The service was to happen at Promise Church in Leonia, New Jersey, a church her household says she helped set up.

However daughter Kummi Kim seen one thing was off straight away.

“On the church, when she opened the casket, I instructed them ‘this isn’t my mother.’ She was a lot youthful wanting,” daughter Kummi Kim mentioned.

The funeral house even dressed the opposite girl in Kyung Ja’s clothes, in line with the lawsuit.

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However the funeral house worker reassured Kim that it was her mom and the ceremony continued.

It wasn’t till the casket was midway within the grave website in Valhalla, New York that funeral house workers alerted the household of their mistake.

“With out saying one other phrase she ran away from the cemetery proper that minute,” Kummi mentioned. “Folks simply noticed me collapsing down. Nobody was actually certain what was going they usually figured it out after I collapsed.”

Kummi mentioned due to the error they weren’t capable of give her mom the right church service she needed and feels responsible for the rushed service the next day.

“She mentioned she’d put together my mom quickly and we would have her that afternoon, but it surely was pouring rain so it needed to be postponed to Sunday,” Kummi mentioned. “We could not have an actual church service. No different buddies or church members might come. It isn’t her want. She wished the whole lot may very well be completed on the church and say goodbye the right method to buddies and church members.”

Kummi mentioned after the ordeal they reached out to the household of the girl who was in her mom’s casket.

“They could not do open casket for the opposite household, as a result of she had already began to decay,” Kummi mentioned. “We’re actually two victims. Not solely my mother however the different sufferer.”

Kyung Ja’s household mentioned any cash that they win within the lawsuit can be donated to the church their mom attended in her honor.