Fresno funeral home sued by family after placing wrong body in casket. What happened?
Family members of a recently deceased Madera woman are suing the Fresno Funeral Chapel for negligence after their relative’s body was dressed and delivered to the wrong funeral.
The mix-up not only caused the family of Cher Lee emotional trauma — it also caused them to worry that they may have affected Lee’s journey to her final resting place, according to the lawsuit filed by Eva Lee, Pheng Lee and Mee Lee.
Eva and Pheng are the grandchildren of Cher Lee, who died on Sept. 23, 2021. Mee Lee is the daughter of the deceased.
According to the lawsuit filed Thursday in Fresno County Superior Court, the Lee family was shocked to discover Cher Lee was prepared and transported to somebody else’s funeral.
Equally stunned was the Khang family when they opened the casket of who they thought was their relative.
“In the middle of the funeral, however, to the extreme shock and surprise of all in attendance, the Khang family opened the casket to discover the wrong body!,” the lawsuit states. “Defendant had dressed Cher Lee in the Khang family members’ ceremonial funeral clothes and was now in the open casket in place of the departed Khang family member.”
The following weekend a member of the Khang family approached the Lee family with photos of Cher Lee at their own family member’s funeral, dressed in the wrong clothes, the lawsuit states.
Response from funeral home
Steven Smith, the chapel’s funeral director, admitted Friday the funeral home at 1136 A Street didn’t do enough to make sure they were preparing the right body for the right funeral.
Smith said the problem began when one of his staff brought out the wrong body to be dressed for the Khang funeral that day. It didn’t help that two of the Khang family relatives helped dress the body and didn’t realize it was a different person, he said.
The Khang family could not be reached for comment Friday.
“They dressed her but it was our mistake for putting the wrong body out,” Smith said. “We should have double checked.”
Smith said he has never had a problem like this in 53 years of the funeral business. “And I pray it doesn’t again,” Smith said.
The Lee family said in the lawsuit that one of the reasons they chose the Fresno Funeral Chapel is because they were assured by event coordinator Paula Yang that the funeral would honor their Hmong funeral customs.
“The afterlife and its preparation is of extreme significance for both the living and the departed. Indeed, many Hmong believe that when the body is mishandled, and the funeral songs sung, the deceased relative not only fails to make their journey to the afterlife, but the deceased stays lost between this life and the next and curses the surviving family members,” according to the lawsuit.
Yang said Friday that she was not aware of the lawsuit and was “really surprised” to hear what happened at the funeral.
The entire cost of the funeral was $17,469.
The Lee family is seeking monetary damages of no less than $1 million for each plaintiff. Their lawyer is Brian Whelan of Whelan Law Group in Fresno.
