Cremation Class-Action Settled for $16 Million

An Anaheim crematorium and several local mortuaries and funeral societies will pay more than $16 million under an agreement approved Friday to settle a class-action lawsuit that alleged mishandling of cremations, including the commingling of remains and the removal of dental gold.

The settlement, which ends a hotly contested case, will be shared among some 15,000 relatives of people who were cremated at Cremar Crematorium between 1981 and 1991 through several area mortuaries and funeral societies.

As part of the settlement, about $6 million, or 38% of the amount, will go to compensate a team of attorneys that spent about 25,000 hours representing the relatives, meaning each claimant will receive $600 to $700, according to court estimates.

Attorneys for the crematorium and other defendants said the settlement is not an admission of guilt or wrongdoing, but avoids many more years of costly court action.

“To continue this litigation would have cost millions of dollars for my client,” said Anthony R. Delling, who represented Sentinel Cremation Societies Inc., which bought Cremar in 1989.

“Although we don’t think anything improper happened, you never know what a jury will decide,” he continued. “In any case, no matter how strong, there is always risk of losing.”

Delling said his client will pay $15 million of the settlement, about 95% of that amount coming from insurance coverage.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Donald E. Smallwood, who approved the settlement after listening to sometimes tearful testimony from relatives, called the agreement “fair, reasonable and adequate” and said he hopes it helps bring “emotional closure.”

“Grieving is a very difficult process,” the judge said. “I would suggest by ending the litigation, we can begin the end of the grieving process.”

Smallwood estimated a trial in the 4-year-old case could have lasted 300 to 400 days, not to mention three to four more years for an almost certain appeal no matter what a jury might decide. He said the settlement represents the amount of insurance available, coverage that may have been jeopardized had the case gone to trial.

William A. Kershaw, the lead attorney for the relatives, said he hopes the group will come away from the painful experience with some satisfaction that their combined efforts helped spark reform in the funeral industry.

Kershaw pointed to a state Assembly bill, effective in March, that included such changes as requiring yearly unannounced inspections of crematory facilities and making it a felony to misappropriate dental gold, silver or jewelry. Other changes require that corpses be refrigerated before cremation, that more training be provided for crematorium workers and that excess cremated remains be put into an additional urn at no additional cost.

Attorneys for the defendants said they also welcomed the new laws.

About 50 relatives filled the courtroom for the settlement hearing Friday, many testifying about nightmares they still have about what may have happened to the remains of their loved ones. While the relatives said no amount of money could compensate their anguish, they said they were grateful for the new laws.

“At least I know when I have to deal with this again, I know everything will be handled properly,” said Donna Griffith, whose involvement in the suit came through her father’s cremation.

The class-action lawsuit was filed in 1991 by eight people who alleged that bodies of family members were treated improperly before cremation and that remains mixed with others afterward. The relatives also charged that gold fillings were taken and sold and bodies were subjected to “rough treatment” as they were “rushed through the cremation process.”

An estimated 28,000 cremations took place at Cremar over the 10-year period, and about 15,000 of some 28,000 eligible relatives opted to join the action, Kershaw said. The judge set a Jan. 10, 1995, deadline for the eligible relatives to file a claim for a share of the settlement.

Defendants in the settlement approved Friday include Cremar Inc., Telophase Society of America, Sentinel Cremation Societies Inc., Tustin Mortuary Inc. and Sheffer Mortuary Inc.