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PrintCOLUMBIA — The attorney in Kathy Johnson's lawsuit against Warren Funeral Chapel said he has been in contact with more than 20 people interested in joining a potential class action lawsuit.
If a judge certifies the suit as a class action, more people could join Johnson in seeking damages for what her attorney, Pete Nacy, has called "negligent and intentional mishandling" of their family members' bodies.
Both sides were in court Friday for a hearing, but because Warren attorney Dan Viets reportedly did not receive a copy of the motion to certify the suit as a class action, Boone County Circuit Judge Gene Hamilton set a hearing for Feb. 23, 2009.
Meanwhile, the Warrens have until Nov. 3 to resolve a suit filed by Attorney General Jay Nixon, and they face another suit by a former client.
In the coming weeks, Nacy said, he will file briefs and affidavits, many of them outlining what people interested in joining the suit have told him. He said their accusations go beyond what the funeral home and its owners, Harold Warren Sr. and Harold Warren Jr., are accused of in Nixon's lawsuit.
The funeral home has been closed since the end of July because of a court injunction in the attorney general's suit, which states that an inspection of the Columbia funeral home found unsanitary conditions and improperly stored bodies, including the body of a woman who died from hepatitis and was not refrigerated or embalmed for 10 months.
The most recent suit against the Warrens was filed by Mildred Williams of Florissant. Williams' suit accuses the Warrens of losing or failing to turn over her brother's ashes and keeping her mother's body unrefrigerated for months in the funeral home's basement, even though she was supposed to be cremated.
Williams' brother, Lewis H. Lawson, died in 2004, and her mother, Christine M. Logan, died in January. Williams still doesn't have her brother's remains, said her lawyer, Phillip Burdick.
Johnson's suit accuses the Warrens and Rock Bridge Cemetery caretaker Dave Turner of losing her mother's body. Nacy said Johnson now is seeking an exhumation to determine if her mother is in her burial plot.
At times using identical language, both suits say Johnson, Williams and others who used Warren Funeral Chapel for funeral services have "suffered terrible, frightening indignities, embarrassment, insult and outrage," as well as "mental anguish."
Burdick said it is possible Williams would join Johnson's suit if it is certified as a class action, but they haven't discussed that possibility much yet.
Johnson is seeking actual damages, such as the cost of exhumation and hiring a new funeral director, and punitive damages.
"Based on some of the things I've heard (from people interested in joining the suit)," Nacy said, "I imagine the punitive damages we seek will be fairly substantial."
Williams' suit requests a jury trial and asks for at least $25,000 in damages.
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