Los Angeles Jewish Cemetery Sued for Dumping Bodies — Again
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
A Jewish cemetery accused of disturbing dead people’s remains is being sued for the second time.
Several dozen relatives of people buried at Eden Memorial Park Cemetery filed a complaint Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court alleging mass disturbances of their loved ones’ graves.
About 40,000 people are buried in the 72-acre cemetery, including comedians Groucho Marx and Lenny Bruce. The allegations include interference with dead bodies and with the right to dispose of remains, intentional infliction of emotional distress and fraud, the local CBS affiliate reported.
The cemetery’s employees have testified that every grave at Eden Memorial Park is currently at risk of being disturbed and its protective vault damaged, the lawsuit said, according to CBS.
Eden Memorial Park is owned and operated by SCI California, a subsidiary of Texas-based Service Corporation International (SCI), the largest operator of cemeteries and funeral services in the United States.
Company officials “have not seen the lawsuit and therefore cannot comment on it,” SCI spokeswoman Jessica McDunn said in a statement.
In March 2014, the cemetery agreed to a settlement worth about $80.5 million in a class-action lawsuit involving 25,000 claimants.
The lawsuit claimed that Eden Memorial Park, one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in the United States, instructed groundskeepers to “secretly break concrete vaults with a backhoe and remove, dump and/or discard the human remains, including human skulls, to make room for new interments.” The alleged incidents began as early as 1985.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
