CEMETERY MUST PAY FOR ERROR
Anaheim, California
An Anaheim cemetery was ordered to pay $5 million to a Lake Forrest woman for burying strangers in the family plot. The sale of Patsy Cullings' plots to another family forced her to bury her husband in Riverside instead of at Melrose Abbey Memorial Park, alongside his parents. The Cullings family had purchased six plots.
Cullings sued and Orange County Superior Court Commissioner, Eleanor Palk, said the cemetery must pay for the dual sales.
"I have this little knot in my heart because no matter how much money we got, nothing will put our people back together," said Cullings, 76. "Anything they have to pay I think they should because they didn't do right by our family."
Cullings' late husband, Philip, is buried in the National Cemetery in Riverside. "The Cullingses discovered other people were buried in their graves in 2001. The plots were resold in 1992 by then-owner Angels Lawn Cemetery," said Cullings' attorney Mark Plummer. In 1995, the cemetery was purchased by A.L. Cemetery, and Plummer said he wants it to pay the judgment.