Funeral Home Breached by Sending Corpse to Landfill

The family of a man whose body was accidentally sent to a landfill by a Michigan funeral home is suing for $1 million, claiming breach of contract and infliction of emotional distress.

When 66-year-old Erwin Jordan died, his body was taken to the Notier-VerLee-Langeland Funeral Home in Holland (left) while the family was deciding on burial or cremation.  As was its winter custom, the funeral home stored the body in a box in its unheated garage.  When the company's trash hauler arrived, the driver apparently assume the box was trash and took it to the Zeeland Township landfill.  A search for the body at the landfill has been unavailing.

The family is also suing the trash hauler, Priority Arrowaste, for negligence.  (Photo: NVLL Funeral Home Web Site.)

[Frank Snyder]