NEW YORK (Reuters) - Evelyn and Hortense Edwards spent two decades visiting what they thought was their mother's grave in a New Jersey cemetery only to discover it contained the remains of a stranger, according to court papers.

Now, the sisters are suing, seeking want $25 million in damages from Rosehill Cemetery in Linden, New Jersey, for emotional distress caused when they learned that their mother, Beatrice Williams, had been buried in the wrong plot.

"It was devastating for them," Mark Crawford, the sisters' attorney, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday.

He said they only recently discovered the mix-up after complaining to the cemetery that what they thought was their mother's grave, which they visit regularly, was falling into disrepair. An employee looked up the plot in question.

"She said, 'There's a man buried there,' and they said, 'What do you mean there's a man buried there?'" Crawford said.

The complaint filed in Brooklyn Federal Court says the cemetery has acknowledged that the plot location in the sisters' paperwork -- Section 52, Row 20, Grave 103 -- was incorrect.

That error caused the sisters to have "visited the wrong gravesite, sought comfort from the wrong grave, laid flowers on the wrong grave, (and) prayed and had confidential conversations at the wrong grave," it said.

In a letter sent to the sisters last July, the cemetery said it believed their mother was in fact buried in Section 52, Row 20, Grave 132, the complaint said.

A woman who answered the telephone at the cemetery's main office on Tuesday declined to comment before hanging up.

Crawford said the sisters believe that if the cemetery management could be mistaken once, it could be mistaken again, and are not convinced that the cemetery has not misplaced their mother's remains.

They want the cemetery to disinter the remains at the second grave to confirm the remains there are of their mother.

The cemetery management has said it will only do so if the sisters take responsibility should the cemetery still be mistaken and, for example, the relatives of whoever is buried at Grave 132 discover their loved one's remains were unnecessarily disinterred and decide to sue, Crawford said.

"They're not willing to take the risk of correcting their own mistake," he said.

The sisters, who live in the New York borough of Queens, had bought three plots at their mother's death in the hope that they might one day be buried by her side.

Crawford said he did not know the identity of the man buried beneath Beatrice Williams' grave marker. Nor was he certain whether the mix-up was restricted to just two sets of remains -- that Grave 103 actually contains the remains that should be in Grave 132, and vice versa -- or whether other plots were similarly mislabeled.

http://news.yahoo.com/sisters-sue-jersey-cemetery-over-grave-mix-224759503.html

25 million?!? I wouldn't try for that if I discovered my son was switched at birth!

The cemetery should compensate some money, like maybe double what they paid for the three plots. I am surprised that the cemetery is not going to be proactive in figuring out who is where.

25 million dollars is ridiculous.

25 million is ridiculous - sounds like these sisters care more abotu making a huge profit than the actual mix-up. I can see some compensation but what these two are asking for is totally ridiculous and speaks of pure greed, rather than actual loss and grief. ITA with Red that I wouldn't even be seeking that much if my own kid had been switched at birth!!!!! I hope they loose and the judge sees them for the gold diggers they are.

They certainly deserve something but $25 million is absurd. They & their greedy attorney need to aim a hell of a lot lower.

RedBedroom wrote:

25 million?!? I wouldn't try for that if I discovered my son was switched at birth!

The cemetery should compensate some money, like maybe double what they paid for the three plots. I am surprised that the cemetery is not going to be proactive in figuring out who is where.

I read about this in the paper yesterday. LOL, just like a nigga to try and get over. Who is gonna pay you 25 mil for that? They should get something, but not that much.

Quote :

That error caused the sisters to have "visited the wrong gravesite, sought comfort from the wrong grave, laid flowers on the wrong grave, (and) prayed and had confidential conversations at the wrong grave," it said.

$25,000,000? If some doctor had put her in that grave (which ever one it turns out to be) through malpractice, I doubt they would have gotten close to that.

Hey, try for all the money you get....
They won't get paid even a third of what they're seeking, but I can't blame them for trying.

When grief meets greed. Asking for 25 million for this blunder is hilarious. I'm sure whoever it was they spent over 20 years unknowingly talking to relayed the messages back to their mother.

CatEyes10736 wrote:

When grief meets greed. Asking for 25 million for this blunder is hilarious. I'm sure whoever it was they spent over 20 years unknowingly talking to relayed the messages back to their mother.

Marc™ wrote:

Hey, try for all the money you get....
They won't get paid even a third of what they're seeking, but I can't blame them for trying.

Now that you put it that way........

Not to be unsympathetic at all, but personally I think that cemetaries are mostly a waste of space and good land that could be used for other purposes for the living. I think they should just do mandatory cremations on everyone and no matter what you did with the ashes afterwards, it still takes up less space than a coffin and headstone does.

There could still be designated areas of land and/or mausoleums for burial, and not to sound too Monty Python, here, but think of how many more remains you could fit in those areas if all you have to contend with is a small urn. That would still give mourners a place to go visit, and reflect, but also would be more space-savvy.

Then too, there could also still be the option to take the ashes yourself and do what you want with them--keep 'em on your bookshelf, scatter them to the wind, whatever.

I mean no disrespect in any way at all by saying all that, but to have all these elaborate space-wasting coffins, headstones and such seems foolish to me. It's all stuff to make those surviving feel better, but overall, the person needing those is dead and gone. Better, in my opinion, to remember the dead, but focus on who's still alive and their needs. Take up landspace with traditional cemetaries, or could some of that land be put to better use by perhaps building a school to alleviate overcrowding in another area school?

Just some food for thought!

Hyacinth Girl wrote:

Not to be unsympathetic at all, but personally I think that cemetaries are mostly a waste of space and good land that could be used for other purposes for the living. I think they should just do mandatory cremations on everyone and no matter what you did with the ashes afterwards, it still takes up less space than a coffin and headstone does.

There could still be designated areas of land and/or mausoleums for burial, and not to sound too Monty Python, here, but think of how many more remains you could fit in those areas if all you have to contend with is a small urn. That would still give mourners a place to go visit, and reflect, but also would be more space-savvy.

Then too, there could also still be the option to take the ashes yourself and do what you want with them--keep 'em on your bookshelf, scatter them to the wind, whatever.

I mean no disrespect in any way at all by saying all that, but to have all these elaborate space-wasting coffins, headstones and such seems foolish to me. It's all stuff to make those surviving feel better, but overall, the person needing those is dead and gone. Better, in my opinion, to remember the dead, but focus on who's still alive and their needs. Take up landspace with traditional cemetaries, or could some of that land be put to better use by perhaps building a school to alleviate overcrowding in another area school?

Just some food for thought!

I agree with you. For all practical reasons, what will it be like in 75 years when we have countless cemetaries? I think about that often.

Hyacinth Girl wrote:

Not to be unsympathetic at all, but personally I think that cemetaries are mostly a waste of space and good land that could be used for other purposes for the living.

Who are you, Al Czervik from Caddyshack? “I tell you, golf courses and cemeteries are the biggest wastes of prime real estate.”

Yeah - I wonder what happens in huge cities when they don't have places like cemeteries set aside - like in some of these cities in other countries that have millions of people.