Judge to rule Friday on whether amended lawsuit by area family can include punitive damages against Menorah Gardens and Service Corporation International (SCI)

Judge to rule Friday on whether amended lawsuit by area family can include punitive damages against Menorah Gardens and Service Corporation International (SCI)

Circuit Judge Art Wroble has set a special hearing for Friday, February 13, 2004 at 2:30 p.m. in his courtroom (Governmental Complex – 301 N. Dixie Highway) to rule on a request to amend a lawsuit filed by attorney Ted Leopold partner in the law firm of Ricci~Leopold, P.A., on behalf of the family of Sylvia Guralnick, against Menorah Gardens and its parent company Service Corporation International (SCI). Leopold is requesting that Judge Wroble rule that the family can amend their complaint against Menorah – SCI to include punitive damages, which would in addition to requesting compensatory damages, punish Menorah-SCI for their actions.

More than 60 area families represented by Ted Leopold and the firm of Ricci~Leopold, P.A., have filed suit against Menorah Gardens SCI.

In late August of 2003, Leopold and an investigative team worked with officials to exhume the remains of Sylvia Guralnick. Upon examination it was determined that the vault containing her casket and remains may have been disturbed, moreover that other graves purchased by her family had been placed too close together in order to accommodate other graves and that there may now not be enough room for other Guralnick family members upon their death.

Human remains have been found in the woods adjacent to the cemetery in Palm Beach Gardens. Our investigation will continue. Steps are being taken with each individual family to learn what Menorah has done in each case. We are finding is a continuing pattern of fraud. Even Menorah’s statements to the media are not truthful. They have something different to proclaim to every media outlet. The facts are in front of us, and the evidence against SCI will continue to mount, as we proceed with this pre-trial investigation.

The Guralnick family has been under great stress and has dealt with an unyielding burden of not knowing the disposition of their loved one, and knowing whether the additional burial plots they own are available or occupied. Without notice, the cemetery has reduced the size of those plots after they had been purchased by families. We will continue trying to get them some honest answers.

The civil suit that Ricci~Leopold, P.A. has filed on behalf of the more than 60 families states a number of claims against Menorah Gardens/SCI which include secretly breaking and opening burial vaults and dumping remains in a wooded area where they may have been consumed by wild animals; burying remains in locations other than those purchased by families; crushing burial vaults in order to make room for other vaults; burying remains on top of the other remains rather than side-by-side; secretly mixing body parts and remains from different individuals’ secretly allowing plots owned by one party to be occupied by a different person; secretly allowing graves to encroach on other plots; selling plots so narrow that the grave could not accommodate industry standard burial vaults; desecrating graves and markers while failing to exercise reasonable care in handling the plantiff’s loved ones remains.