Family sues after dad’s body falls out of casket during funeral

It is every grieving family’s worst nightmare.

What should be a solemn opportunity to bid farewell to a loved one ruined by an unthinkable equipment malfunction.

Certainly, most of us wouldn’t wish on our worst enemy the mishap that befell a California family last summer during the funeral of their beloved father.

In a new lawsuit filed in Los Angeles this week, Tania Morales says “the bottom of the casket” used for her dad Santos Orlando Morales’ Aug. 21 funeral “gave out during the proceedings.”

The casket fail caused Santos’s body to “drop out” during the solemn service.

Santos Morales died in August 2020.

According to the new negligence and product liability complaint, defendants Sunset Funeral and Cremation Services and Universal Casket MFR Corp., both based in Los Angeles County, had a duty to handle Santos Orlando Morales’ body in a “respectful manner.”

“Defendants knew that the decedent’s family wanted a casket that was not defective and would not cause the decedent’s body to fall out the bottom of said casket,” the 13-page lawsuit states.

Sunset Funeral and Cremation Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The New York Daily News, which first reported the story.

The other casket provider named in the suit was more forthcoming, however.

Ariel Suarez, owner of Universal Casket, told the Daily News that all his firm’s caskets come with maximum weights they can hold. He added that it is important that these guidelines are followed. According to the outlet, however, he claimed to know nothing about the Morales case.

“I don’t remember selling them a casket. I never heard anything about this,” the Daily News quoted him as saying.

The new lawsuit asks for real and punitive damages to be decided at trial.

Defendants “negligently mishandled and desecrated” Santos Orlando Morales’ remains when they “sold decedent’s family a defective casket that caused decedent’s body to fall out of the casket during the funeral proceedings, exposing decedent to the funeral attendees,” the complaint filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court said.