New Jersey family sues funeral home after wrong body in mom’s casket
What was meant to be a gorgeous goodbye to their mother turned into shock and horror for the Kim spouse and children when the woman they virtually buried finished up not being their mother.
The family users claimed they nearly buried a stranger 20 several years more youthful in their mother’s grave right after the funeral household mixed up two girls with the final name Kim. Kyung Ja Kim was 93 when she died on Nov. 10, 2021.
Now, Kyung Ja Kim’s household is in search of a $50 million settlement from the New Jersey funeral household, its director and mortician.
Kyung Ja Kim’s daughter, Kummi Kim, reported the household was shocked when funeral property director Haemin Gina Chong opened the casket ahead of the funeral service.
“When she opened the casket, I explained to them this is not my mom,” Kummi Kim reported during a press conference on Tuesday. “And she failed to say any word about it.”
Central Funeral Household of New Jersey, which is named in the lawsuit, did not instantly react to a simply call for comment.
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Kummi Kim said she and other relatives members considered that embalming know-how had gotten so very good that it made Kyung Ja Kim glance a great deal young than her 93 many years.
The household had presented the funeral house with conventional Korean clothing for burial and Kyung Ja Kim’s dentures. The dentures were being later found beneath the casket pillow, and the other system had a whole established of enamel, reported Michael Maggiano, legal professional for the relatives.
Relatives members who traveled from all more than, which include Korea, mourned and celebrated Kyung Ja Kim’s daily life at a funeral company and for her burial, as have been her needs. It was when Chong started to usher household and close friends away as the casket was staying reduced that the household understood a thing was off.
Maggiano explained there is a tradition of spouse and children customers throwing shovelfuls of dust on the casket throughout burial, and the funeral director was attempting to hurry men and women away from the web-site.
In accordance to the lawsuit, which was filed Monday in state Excellent Courtroom in Bergen County, Chong showed Kummi Kim a photo of her mother as the casket was remaining decreased, inquiring if it was her mother. When Kummi Kim replied of course, Chong directed the cemetery to carry the casket out of the grave and whisked it absent to the funeral household, the go well with said.
Kummi Kim claimed no a single was even able to ask Chong thoughts as she “ran away” from the relatives. Overcome with grief and shock, Kummi Kim reported, she fainted at her mother’s graveside.
When the household returned to the funeral home from the cemetery in Valhalla, New York, Chong ultimately admitted there was a combine-up and that one more girl had been put in Kyung Ja Kim’s coffin, the lawsuit stated. Kummi Kim explained the peacefulness with which her mother had died was marred and created unattractive by the funeral home’s miscalculation.
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Chong did not offer you an apology till the family members bought back again to the funeral home and the next working day as household associates reported goodbye to the suitable individual, the household explained. The family had to phone the lender to place a end on the $9,000 look at to the funeral household, in accordance to Kummi Kim. The lawsuit claimed Chong and mortician Bongho Ha available the family members a refund.
The family members was unable to have a church service again because it was Sunday, and the speedy household members ended up the only types equipped to say goodbye effectively. Kummi Kim claimed family members and friends experienced carved out a single day for the funeral. She known as it a “sad farewell.”
“That was not her want,” Kummi Kim stated. “Her last desire was performing every little thing at the church with declaring goodbye in a proper way to mates and church associates, but we missed it. I truly feel extremely responsible about that. We could not give her the ultimate wish.”
Kummi Kim could not explain the emotions she felt as Chong requested the casket to be brought back up.
“We ended up so peaceful, and we were being admiring her everyday living,” Kummi Kim said. “And then all of a sudden, it was wrong. I felt catastrophe at that time. “
She and her spouse, Taichul Kim, had expended the very last 13 yrs using treatment of Kyung Ja Kim immediately after she experienced a stroke. Taichul Kim and Kummi Kim’s brother and sister, Yoonsung Kim and Jungmi Kim Walder, are also mentioned as plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
Maggiano said not one spouse and children but two are the victims in this article. Kummi Kim stated the relatives of Whaja Kim, the woman whose physique was in her mother’s casket, was not capable to maintain an open up casket funeral due to the fact the body experienced started to decompose, and that she felt terrible for them.
The only rationalization Chong presented to the Kim family members was that neither girl had a tag pinpointing her, Kummi Kim mentioned.
Taichul Kim said the purpose of the lawsuit is to prevent funeral houses from misidentifying bodies.
“They require to correctly detect bodies, and there have to be multiple actions to guarantee that it is the correct human being,” Taichul Kim claimed. “We trustworthy the funeral house, but they violated the have faith in. There was a guarantee to us. This type of slip-up must not occur once again to other family members.”
Maggiano explained the legislation recognizes that absolutely everyone has the right to interment and that was violated when the funeral property switched the bodies. He mentioned the mix-up was a “program failure,” one particular that ought to not have happened, and tha
t there was no prevalent perception all through the course of action at all.
The lawsuit has five rates from the defendants: Central Funeral Household of New Jersey in Ridgefield, Blackley Funeral Home and Cremation Products and services, funeral property director Haemin Gina Chong, and Bongho Ha, the mortician. The lawsuit prices the reduction of ideal to interment, neglectful infliction of psychological distress, intentional infliction of psychological distress, battery and breach of contract.
“‘Contract’ is a extravagant phrase, a lawful word for a broken guarantee,” Maggiano reported. “And I imagine all of us have lived extensive more than enough to know that a damaged assure can be terribly, terribly painful.”
The family reported that they would give the possible revenue from the lawsuit to the two church buildings that had been in close proximity to and pricey to Kyung Ja Kim’s coronary heart.
