Jury Awards $200,000 in Case of Wayward Hearse

The family of a woman whose body became disarranged in its casket in a traffic accident and was almost a day late getting to its destination has been awarded nearly $200,000 in damages by a Los Angeles Superior Court jury.

The verdict was against the hearse driver, who was arrested at the scene of the 1979 accident on suspicion of drunk driving. He later pleaded guilty.

More than $82,000 of the award was for the wife and daughter of the dead woman’s son, who suffered a fatal heart attack several days after viewing his mother’s disheveled remains when the casket was opened at the funeral.

Jurors agreed with assertions made during trial that shock was a contributing factor in the death of Robert Earle in Paradise, Calif., on Dec. 10, 1979.

“The doctor said he suffered a tremendous shock on Dec. 4 when he learned what happened in a newspaper story about the accident,” Harden C. Bennion, attorney for the driver, Vern Howard, said Monday.

The verdict last Friday ended a two-week trial of the Earle family’s wrongful-death suit.

According to the suit, the family arranged with a Paradise mortuary to transport the body of Marion Earle to the Los Angeles area for funeral services. Howard, who was doing business as an independent mortuary services contractor, was hired to transport the body. While driving he became involved in a rear-end collision in the Los Feliz area, was arrested and jailed.

His arrest caused a delay in delivering the casket and, according to the suit, the family was unable to locate their mother’s body for about a day.

It was not until two days later that the family learned, from a newspaper story about “the case of the wayward hearse,” what had caused the delay. They sued Howard and the Paradise mortuary that hired him. (The northern mortuary later was dismissed from the suit.)

“They wanted vindication, an apology,” said attorney Roland Wrinkle of the law firm that represented the Earles. “Nobody ever told them what had happened. They never got an apology. They had to read about it in the paper.”

Jurors, who returned their verdict to Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Earl F. Riley, awarded $82,500 to Robert Earle’s widow, Sophie, and daughter, Kathleen; $40,000 to his sister Shirley Earle and $30,000 each to his sisters Marjorie Holtzman and Gladys Bronson.

Bennion said an appeal is under consideration. Howard, now 64, is no longer working and is under a doctor’s care in Paradise, where he lives, the attorney said.