Attorney General Leslie Rutledge on Thursday sued a shuttered Jacksonville funeral home and its father-and-son owners, saying that their poor -- and sometimes "disgusting" -- handling of the business amounted to repeated violations of the state's Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
LeRoy Wood, 85, of Jacksonville and Rod Wood, 62, of Heber Springs are already charged with 13 felony counts of abuse of corpse for the way they ran Arkansas Funeral Care Inc.
The men, with co-defendant Edward Snow of Cabot, the 64-year-old former manager, are scheduled to stand trial in April and face 78 years in prison, six years on each count.
The business and the Woods also face 11 lawsuits in Garland, Hempstead, Lonoke, Miller and Pulaski counties over complaints about how they handled bodies left in their care and how they ran the business.
The attorney general's office consumer-protection lawsuit is being filed as the first anniversary of the state's investigation into Arkansas Funeral Care's operations approaches.
Rutledge said in a news release that filing the lawsuit is justifiable because Arkansas Funeral Care did not provide services in a timely, professional and respectful manner. Sometimes Arkansas Funeral Care did not do any of what it was contracted to do, she said.
"Anytime Arkansans enter into a contract with a business, they expect all agreed-upon services to be performed timely and ethically," Rutledge said.
"The loss of a loved one can be one of the most difficult periods in anyone's life, and a funeral provider has an obligation to make this time easier. Unfortunately, Arkansas Funeral Care violated the trust of Arkansas families, and they must be held accountable for their disgusting actions," the release said.
The 13-page lawsuit, filed by Rutledge's deputy Sarah Tacker, asks Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox to force the defendants to pay restitution to an undisclosed number of consumers; pay a $10,000 fine for every violation of the Deceptive Trade Practices Act; and to compensate the attorney general for the costs of filing the litigation.
Arkansas Funeral Care had been in operation almost nine years. LeRoy Wood voluntarily surrendered the funeral home's licensing and paid a $10,000 fine in January 2015, within a week of state regulators removing 31 bodies and 21 sets of cremated remains from the West Main Street facility.
Inspectors reported finding a cooler "filled beyond capacity with bodies," including corpses "stacked on top of each other," "seven bodies outside of the cooler that had not been embalmed" and some remains "in an obvious state of decomposition."
In an agreement with the state Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors, LeRoy Wood also promised that customers who had paid for unperformed services would get refunds.
Rutledge's suit says that her office received complaints about the company's failure to provide contracted cremation services; the "nauseating" odor of unrefrigerated and unembalmed bodies; a lack of sufficient staffing to transport bodies; and the extended length of time that the company took to provide death certificates.
During a January 2015 inspection of the funeral home, regulators reported finding blood and other bodily fluids on the floors and walls, and portions of flooring and human ashes stored in a barrel.
One customer reported that he contracted with Arkansas Funeral Care for his mother's cremation, but when the funeral home hadn't done the cremation within nine days, he had to go to a different funeral home, the lawsuit states.
In some cases, the suit says, Arkansas Funeral Care took so long to embalm the bodies that decomposition prevented open-casket funerals. The lawsuit cites one case in which a customer was denied a request to view a body. The staff told her that the deceased "looks like a monster, and he is completely green," and "if you view the body, you will have nightmares."
Other customers reported bodily fluids seeping from remains and saturating the inside of the caskets during visitations, the lawsuit states, noting that one customer reported seeing bodily fluids oozing from the deceased relative's ear during the open-casket viewing.
Another customer reported workers showing her the wrong body before later telling her that her mother's remains had not been picked up from the hospital, the suit says.
The lawsuit further states that Arkansas Funeral Care:
• "Failed to tell consumers material information concerning time delays and staffing constraints when selling funeral services to consumers."
• "Failed to tell consumers that, because of its method and staffing levels, there would be bodily fluids excreted during visitations."
• "Failed to tell consumers that there could be decomposing and rotting flesh that would turn some body parts black."
• "Failed to inform consumers that there could be overwhelming stench at the time of seeing a deceased loved one for the last time."
• "Failed to tell consumers that family members would have to assist in lifting and carrying the remains of their loved ones as part of the transportation process."
Metro on 01/08/2016