Hmong Clan: Cemetery Insulted Customs

California overselling grave plots???

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) - Xia Yang's relatives were shoveling dirt on their matriarch's grave, performing the last rite of a traditional Hmong burial, when they saw something that made them scatter in panic.

The plot, they said, already contained rusty casket handles and decomposing human bones. Under the family's religious beliefs, burying their grandmother with someone else's bones could prevent her from journeying to the spiritual world.

"It was a big blow to the family," said Ka Vue, a son-in-law of Xia Yang. "People were in shock. You can see in the photos, they started scattering, saying this family will be cursed."

To set right the affront to their Old World beliefs, the Yangs turned to a very American remedy - a lawsuit seeking $5 million in damages. Attorney Scott Schutzman, who represents 11 family members, said the graveyard negligently sold the family a used grave.

more...

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nat-gen/2005/oct/17/101708843.html

peddling used plots seems guaranteed to upset most peoples, not the Hmong alone.

"Ray Giunta, a former executive with the California Cemetery Board, testified last week that cemetery officials told him in 1995 that they only had two grave sites left. Since then, the cemetery has sold about 4,500 plots."

That's a lot of pain and suffering, and money, coincidentally.

I'm a bit skeptical.

by the "ad damnum clause." That's the last paragraph of the lawsuit, where the plaintiff names a number in order to meet legal technical requirements. Suing for $5M doesn't mean that's what you're going to get.

The conservative media always focusses on the ad damnum because it's usually sensational and provides fodder for the anti-justice Repiglicans to squal about how "our justice system is broken, and only tort reform can fix it." By tort reform, they mean taking away your ability to seek justice from do-badders.

You'll notice "tort reform" never encompasses a corporation's ability to sue another corporation or, more importantly, to sue an individual.

however, I am still a cynic, and not at all anything like a conservative or someone who is spoon fed republican talking points. I'll let you slide on that one ;).

As a non-believer though I cannot imagine being a juror having to take it on faith that someone's "faith" was so irretrievably damaged by a real life event. I'm not trying to be insensitive, but I live in the the land of barely legal loopholes and real-life vexatious litigants, and that's not a talking point so much as a personal observation.

Mr. Sui The Other Mr. Sui was sued for a bajillion dollars for running into the back of a suddenly stopped car of recent immigrants by the entire extended "family". As it turns out in the investigation, none of them were actually related, and even the baby they had along for the occasion belonged to someone else. They missed their follow up court date and the case was dismissed.

I know a small claims court judge here in Dallas who says that roughly half of the court cases he sees are someone attempting to scam someone else. The latest scam is to sue for the maximum ($5K) and then additional damages through some loophole in the small claims process that lets them ask for hundreds of thousands.

I didn't believe him until I got a notice myself for someone attempting to sue me for a breach of contract on an equity payment . . . filed on exactly the last day of statute to maximize the penalty - plus she wanted another $195K through small claims court for what was essentially a $200 payment schedule error. I was able to show a history of vexatious lawsuits filed by her and the case was dismissed.

So, although I despise the idea of "tort reform" as put forward by this administration, I also think that there is a middle ground that we have to use to address what is rational to expect in filing a lawsuit for these kinds of "damages".

And as far as religion is concerned I really don't think "curses" and the internal mechanics of what happens to your soul when the moon is in which quadrant of the sky and a black cat does the tango in spiked heels and buttless chaps with a rose in his teeth should really be a basis for assessing "damages".

It sounds like there may be thousands of similar cases, in which case the lawsuits will easily exceed whatever meager insurance they may carry. In all likelyhood, the cemetary will simply file bankruptcy and close. Since cemetaries generally have no assets, it's unlikely that the people involved will see much, if any, money from this suit.

The day of the funeral the had to tell a large family of grieving MexAms that they couldn't bury their mama. The RC Calvary in LA paid for that one.