Uniondale Personal Injury Lawyer Files a Sixty-Million-Dollar Lawsuit for Wrong Burial

Rizzuto Law Firm represents Long Island sisters in a landmark case after the negligence of the funeral homes involved denied them their Rights of Sepulcher.

Uniondale, NY, United States - August 17, 2023 —

What was to be a solemn burial rite for a Long Island family turned to outrage after a local funeral home mixed up the interment of their father with the wrong body.

When sisters Stacy Holtsen and Megan Zaner inspected their father’s body before the burial, they were shocked to find a stranger in his place. The funeral home dismissed their concerns and insisted the body belonged to their father, Clifford Zaner. As it turned out, another man was buried in the Zaner family plot. The sisters were informed of the mix-up over a week later, and they had to plan for a second funeral.

Grief-stricken and distressed, the sisters hired Personal Injury Lawyer Phil Rizzuto. As the owner and managing attorney of the Rizzuto Law Firm, he has a long career in defending personal injury cases and is known for his ability to litigate various types of cases, including funeral home neglect. Dedicated to providing the best representation possible, Rizzuto immediately set out to investigate the case and gather all related evidence. 

Being a case of wrong burial and gross neglect, the Rizzuto Law Firm recognized the mental distress and grief caused by the two parties, Star of David Memorial Chapel and Fletcher Funeral and Creation Service. After gathering and analyzing the evidence, the attorney built a case against the at-fault parties. 

The sisters are now suing Star of David Memorial Chapel and Fletcher Funeral and Creation Service for $60 million, accusing the companies of gross negligence and breach of contract. They demand an apology and a commitment from the companies to implement quality controls to ensure nothing like this happens again.

For more information, visit https://www.rizzutolawfirm.com/

According to Phil Rizzuto, the deceased, Clifford Zaner, died in February while in a South Carolina hospital and was to be buried at Mount Ararat Cemetery in Lindenhurst. During the funeral at their family plot in Long Island, Stacy Holzman and Megan Zaner requested to see the body for the last time and immediately knew something was wrong—their father always had a mustache, and the person they saw in the casket was clean-shaven and had a scar across his head that looked like stitches.

The service was stopped and a representative with Star of David Memorial Chapel and Fletcher Funeral and Creation Service assured the grieving daughters the body in the casket and wearing his favorite Led Zeppelin T-shirt belonged to their father. However, the funeral home in South Carolina eventually admitted that Clifford Zaner was not the person whose body had been shipped to New York in the casket.

In a statement to The Washington Post, a representative of Star of David Chapel described what happened as “the mistake made by the funeral home in South Carolina” and said Zaner’s family had confirmed his identity in New York, allowing the burial to proceed.

Holzman denied the claim and said she was stunned by the strange-looking man in her father’s clothes and assumed the funeral home employees knew what they were doing. The employee who opened the casket allegedly explained that some of the changes in appearance were normal and proceeded with the burial at Mount Ararat Cemetery in Lindenhurst. 

"It never crosses your mind that they're giving you the wrong body, it's not your loved one," said Holzman. “We don’t know how we’re going to go to New York and go to the cemetery and stand there—the grave where my dad’s supposed to be and isn’t.” 

After consulting with relatives and rabbis from across the country, they decided to start a new family plot in Jacksonville, Fla., and arranged to have his body moved three weeks later and endure a second funeral with the actual corpse of their father.

Representing Holzman and Zaner, Phil Rizzuto has filed a 19-page lawsuit filed in the New York Supreme Court of Suffolk County,  alleging that Fletcher Funeral & Cremation Service transported the wrong body from South Carolina, where their father died, to Long Island, where Star of David Memorial Chapels was supposed to bury him in a Zaner family plot.

About the Firm:

Long Island, NY-based Rizzuto Law Firm has a track record of recovering millions in settlement for personal injury cases. Not all cases are the same; each type with its own set of laws and circumstances that make it unique to others. Attorneys at the firm have helped clients in various cases, from vehicle accidents, product liability, and cosmetic surgery injuries to medical malpractice, nursing home abuse and neglect, funeral home neglect, and more.

Contact Info:
Name: Rizzuto Law Firm
Email: Send Email
Organization: Rizzuto Law Firm
Address: 50 Charles Lindbergh Blvd #501 Uniondale, NY 11553
Phone: 516-604-5496
Website: https://www.rizzutolawfirm.com/

Release ID: 89105090

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