Dana v. Heartland Management Co.

301 P.3d 772, 48 Kan. App. 2d 1048, 2013 WL 2285275, 2013 Kan. App. LEXIS 47
CourtCourt of Appeals of Kansas
DecidedMay 24, 2013
DocketNo. 108,052
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 301 P.3d 772 (Dana v. Heartland Management Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Kansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Dana v. Heartland Management Co., 301 P.3d 772, 48 Kan. App. 2d 1048, 2013 WL 2285275, 2013 Kan. App. LEXIS 47 (kanctapp 2013).

Opinion

Standridge, J.:

Edwin S. Dana, Sr., and Douglas E. Dana (plaintiffs) appeal from the decision of tire district court to grant summary judgment in favor of the defendants—a funeral and cremation company and staff—on plaintiffs’ claims related to the temporary loss of the cremated remains of plaintiffs’ son and twin brother, respectively, Edwin Dana, Jr. Plaintiffs contend the district court erred in granting summary judgment in favor of the defendants on their claims of outrage, willful interference with Edwin Jr.’s cremated remains, violations of the Kansas Consumer Protection Act (KCPA), and breach of fiduciary duty. Plaintiffs also claim the district court erred in dismissing as moot their motion to amend petition to add a claim of punitive damages.

Facts

On August 12, 2010, the deceased body of Edwin Jr. was discovered in his Topeka home. Edwin Jr. was a Native American member of the Passamaquoddy Indian Tribe and a military veteran. On August 13, 2010, Douglas went to Dove Cremation and Funeral Service and met with Richard Rausch, a funeral director and manager, to make arrangements for Edwin Jr.’s cremation. Rausch also spoke to Edwin Sr. by phone and informed him that as the next of kin he was required to sign an authorization for cremation. Rausch prepared a document titled “Authority to Cremate and Order for Disposition” and faxed it to Edwin Sr., who signed the document and sent it back to Dove. The document included directions that Edwin Jr.’s cremated remains should be shipped via registered mail to Edwin Sr. at his home address in Maine. There was no shipment date indicated on the authorization form, but according to Edwin Sr.’s testimony, Rausch told him that the ashes would be shipped “as soon as possible; more than likely [August] 17th.” Conversely, Rausch claimed that he made no promises to Edwin Sr. or Douglas about when the remains would be sent. In alleged reliance on Rausch’s promise to send Edwin Jr.’s remains by August 17, Edwin Sr. planned to have a wake, [1051]*1051funeral, and burial on the Passamaquoddy Reservation in Maine on August 24-26, 2010.

On August 14, 2010, Douglas viewed Edwin Jr.’s body in the garage of the Penwell-Gabel Mid-Town Chapel. When a body is decomposed, as Edwin Jr.’s was, viewings generally occur in the chapel garage. Before viewing the body, Rausch had Douglas sign a waiver of liability acknowledging that the body was in an advanced state of decomposition. Upon viewing the body, Douglas performed a smudge, a ceremonial release of the spirit which involved putting a substance on Edwin Jr.’s body and waving an eagle’s wing. Douglas placed some items, including a fan, beads, and an eagle’s wing in the body bag with Edwin Jr. Douglas returned to the funeral home on August 15, 2010, and observed Edwin Jr.’s body as it was placed into the crematory retort.

The cremation process

Newcomer Funeral Service Group owns the stock of Heartland Management Company, Inc., which does business as Dove Cremation and Funeral Services and Penwell-Gabel Funeral Homes. Shared Mortuary Services (SMS) is part of the Penwell-Gabel Funeral Homes and is an in-house centralized preparation center that performs cremation services at the Shawnee County Crematory. When a body is cremated there, the body is placed in a cooler until the time the cremation is to take place. Each body is accompanied throughout the process by a metal disk with a cremation ID number and a case record. The ID number is recorded on the case record, along with the following information: the date, the primary authorizing agent, the coroner’s permit, the county, the container in which the body was brought to the crematoiy, and a description of the urn in which the cremated remains are to be placed. SMS also has a daily cremation log where the ID number is recorded along with the date and time the remains are placed inside and removed from the crematory retort.

At the time of Edwin Jr.’s cremation, when the body was placed into the retort, the metal ID disk was attached to a magnetic clip that hung on the outside. After processing, the remains were placed in a plastic bag and, along with the metal ID disk and case record, [1052]*1052were taken to the SMS office where tire ID number, name, location of death, date of cremation, and the responsible funeral home were entered in a log. The remains were placed in an urn and then put into a locked storage locker. When the remains were placed into an urn, the person who removed the remains from the crematory created three identical labels containing the deceased’s name, tire cremation ID number, the date of cremation, place of death, and the responsible funeral home. One label was affixed on the outside of the urn; one label was placed on a note card and placed outside of the locker; and one label was laminated, affixed to tire metal ID disk, and placed inside the urn.

Edwin Jr.’s cremation and the search for his remains

At 9:46 a.m. on August 15, 2010, Jay Luehring, an embalmer and funeral director at Shawnee. County Crematory, placed Edwin Jr.’s body into the retort to be cremated. At 6:30 p.m., Luehring removed Edwin Jr.’s ashes, placed them in a temporary urn, and created three labels for the remains. In creating tire labels, Lueh-ring did not look at or read the labels before affixing them to the urn, the note card, and the ID disk and did not compare the ID number on the metal disk to the number on the label.

Late in the afternoon of August 18, Lary Dodge, tire manager of SMS, received Edwin Jr.’s death certificate via fax. Dodge unsuccessfully attempted to locate a .locker or urn labeled with Edwin Jr.’s name in order to place the death certificate in the file. Dodge also checked tire completed case records and the filing cabinet where permanent files were kept but could not locate Edwin Jr.’s case file. Dodge then told Luehring that he was unable to locate the locker with Edwin Jr.’s remains; Luehring accompanied Dodge as he looked at the labels on the outside of each locker and checked inside, each labeled locker to see if the label on the urn matched the label on the outside of the locker. Dodge did not look at the case file inside each locker to compare it to the labels. Dodge notified Rausch of his inability to located Edwin Jr.’s urn or case file. Rausch went to SMS and met with Dodge, where Rausch opened each locker, looked at the label on the urn in each locker, and compared the urn label to the label on the outside of the [1053]*1053locker. Rausch also searched a filing cabinet at SMS. Rausch did not look at the case files in any of the lockers.

On August 19, Dodge, Rausch, Luehring, and Jed Dunnichay, the senior vice-president of Heartland Management Company, went to Dove, the Parker-Price Funeral Home, and other funeral homes in Topeka to see if Edwin Jr.’s remains had been mistakenly taken to another funeral home. In the course of searching, they looked in other rooms in the basements of the Dove and Parker-Price funeral homes, emptied the shelving at SMS, went through tire storeroom in the back of the building, and looked through a trash dumpster. Dodge also told Melissa Schroeder, an embalmer at SMS, that Edwin Jr.’s remains and case file were missing. Schroeder searched the file cabinet that held the closed files and made phone calls to other funeral homes.

On August 20, Dunnichay interviewed Rausch, Dodge, Luehr-ing, and other individuals to discuss the chain of custody that had occurred with Edwin Jr.’s remains.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
301 P.3d 772, 48 Kan. App. 2d 1048, 2013 WL 2285275, 2013 Kan. App. LEXIS 47, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dana-v-heartland-management-co-kanctapp-2013.