Wrong Casket, Wrong Grave
Not all consumers are pleased with the state's level of enforcement and think regulators can be too cozy with the industry. State funeral office manager McPhee, a former funeral director, believes many complaints can be resolved without legal action and regularly closes cases with the explanation there's little he can do since neither the state nor the federal government regulate costs. "The fact that prices seem high or unreasonable," McPhee tells consumers, "does not violate [government] regulations." Cemeteries, for one, are allowed to require the purchase of burial containers even though state law doesn't require them. Cemeteries also are allowed to establish their own rules and regulations that in turn take on the effect of state law, McPhee says.
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Six Feet Underhanded
Health care is a familiar issue, but what about "death care"? The funeral industry in Washington is giving some grief-stricken consumers grave concerns.
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- State Funeral and Cemetery Office, for complaints and inquiries: 360-664-1555 or via e-mail to funerals@dol.wa.gov, www.dol.wa.gov/unfc/funfront.htm.
- State Cemetery Board, which licenses and regulates 149 cemeteries in Washington: 360-664-1555, www.dol.wa.gov/unfc/cemfront.htm.
- Washington Office of the Attorney General, for complaints and help in death planning including wills, funerals, and estates: 800-551-4636, www.atg.wa.gov/consumer/death.
- Washington State Funeral Directors Association, a professional organization and news site: 253-588-7111, www.wsfda.org.
- Peoples Memorial Association of Washington, a nonprofit funeral group, with membership: 206-325-0489, www.peoples-memorial.org.
- National Funeral Directors Association, a professional organization; takes complaints and provides tips and info on all death services: 800-228-6332, www.nfda.org.
- The Funeral Consumers Alliance, for information on low-cost funeral services: 800-765-0107, www.funerals.org.
- Federal Trade Commission, for U.S. funeral regulations, advice, and complaint services: 877-FTC-HELP, www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/
pubs/services/funeral.htm.
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For the most part, the state can do little about minor personal misconduct such as rudeness or impatience, though the mere fact that a director or cemetery operator might receive a call from the state has a deterrent effect. "Personalities, attitudes, and one's personal character are difficult to use in establishing a charge of unprofessional conduct," McPhee wrote to an Eastern Washington woman whose son was one of two teenagers killed in a car crash. She complained she had been anxious to see her son's body at Mueller's, a Kennewick funeral home, but was made to wait while the body was being groomed for presentation. When the woman said appearance didn't matter, she claims she was told by a director "Well, I could just let you see him right now!" all torn up. She had to be physically restrained, she said. The director told the family of the other dead youth they'd have to wait, too, because "I am trying to sew your son's foot back on," according to the complaint. No state disciplinary action was taken, further upsetting the woman. She thought state investigators were just sloughing it all off to a funeral director "having a bad day." Funeral and Cemetery Office administrator Jon Donnellan agreed that Mueller's director had displayed poor behavior, but said it was the first such complaint against him.
Understandably, there's a lot of emotion involved here. Complainants vent their grief in long letters and e-mails to the state over lack of courtesy and caring, and slights real and perhaps exaggerated—complaints that are generally dealt with by notifying the funeral home, in some cases triggering a letter of apology. Some operators are willing to negotiate disputed costs, acknowledging that funeral arrangements are typically made in a rush, and even those seemingly well-planned can come up short. "It is quite common for family members to inform other family members that all funeral-related expenses have been taken care of" because the person has signed a contract, McPhee explains. Some consumers could also have been misled into thinking they were fully covered.
Counties will pay costs to cremate remains of the indigent, in some cases burying them en masse once a year—in 2005 at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Renton, King County buried the ashes of 200 people, mostly poor, homeless, and unclaimed, in a single grave on a single day. The law allows directors to apply for financial assistance, including the cost of cremation. Nonetheless, a Tacoma woman who couldn't afford a funeral for her sister was told by a director, she says, to either pay up or he'd take the body back to the hospice where the sister died. Another relative paid the tab, she told officials.
Other funeral/cemetery complaints include the temporary misplacing of a loved one's ashes, only to be suddenly found, leaving family members to wonder if it's really Uncle Bob in that urn. Missing, misplaced, unkempt, or, perhaps worst of all, misspelled headstones are a constant drumbeat. A Seattle-area woman says her mother's name, Ethelyn, was etched in as Evelyn at a local cemetery. (The cemetery, Greenwood Memorial Park, made the correction and, in a gesture of apology, offered to place a bouquet of flowers on the grave free for 12 months.) Consumers also complain about the makeup and cleanup of their loved ones, such as the Tacoma family that discovered blood around the nostrils and a waxy substance on the ears of their patriarch during viewing; he had also been placed in the wrong casket.
Then there is the grave already occupied. As her husband neared death, a South King County woman bought a grave site that, it turned out, held the remains of another man. The cemetery promised the remains would be moved to another section. But when her husband died a month later, the woman discovered the other body had not been relocated, according to state documents, and was told there were two contracts for the same grave. The woman, a former real estate salesperson, says she pointed out to the cemetery that in the real estate business, "When people sell the same property to two different parties and get caught, they go to prison." That seemed to work. She was promptly given an agreeable burial site.
randerson@seattleweekly.com
