ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – An Orange County funeral home presented the the wrong body during a funeral service in 2024, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday.
The plaintiff in the lawsuit against Mitchell’s Funeral Home claimed the facility “presented, displayed, and utilized” her mother’s body during another family’s funeral service without the plaintiff’s knowledge or consent.
The plaintiff alleged that she later learned from local news and other third parties that her mother’s body “had been wrongfully presented at a separate funeral service intended for another deceased individual.”
News 6’s Mike Valente walked inside Mitchell’s Funeral Home in an attempt to ask those in charge about the allegations. An employee inside said she did not know anything about the lawsuit and that the owner was not around to speak.
“Most common mistakes are mistakes that involve the disposition of the actual remains and not necessarily the service,” said Ortavia Simon, an attorney who specializes in funeral service law at Simon Law Group.
Simon also owns a funeral home in Orange County.
“It just sort of happens to be a mistake that shocks the conscience here,” Simon said.
Although shocking, Simon said that a lawsuit such as this one would have a better chance of succeeding if the plaintiff were able to prove that either her emotional distress manifested itself in a physical way or if funeral home staff acted with intentional conduct.
The complaint alleges emotional distress and negligence, but does not attempt to characterize motives or intent on the part of the defendant.
“I think that the complaint may not withstand a motion to dismiss because it does not allege facts that at least show that there are all of the elements that are required,” Simon said.
The lawsuit is at least the second one alleging Mitchell’s Funeral Home of negligent conduct during May of 2024.
A lawsuit filed last year claimed that in anticipation of the plaintiffs’ mother’s funeral, the funeral home presented the incorrect body to them.
“Despite Plaintiffs’ insistence on this fact, DEFENDANT MITCHELL’S FUNERAL HOME, INC. continued to convey false claims that the body was Plaintiffs’ mother, through both statements and actions sought to convince Plaintiffs that the body was that of their mother,” the lawsuit stated.