Forest Lawn Mortuary and Forest Lawn Memorial Park Association attorneys state in new court papers that a dispute over the alleged misplacement of a woman’s burial marker that caused her son to visit the wrong gravesite for four years belongs in arbitration rather than the courts.
The man’s Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit alleges fraud, breach of contract, negligence ad negligent infliction of emotional distress. According to court papers filed Friday by Forest Lawn attorneys with Judge Colin Leis, all of those claims come under the arbitration clause of the man’s September 2021 purchase and sale agreement.
“Plaintiff should not be allowed to avoid a valid and enforceable arbitration agreement entered into voluntarily by plaintiff and that a strong public policy exists favoring arbitration as a means of resolving disputes because it is expeditious, less expensive and relieves overburdened courts,” the Forest Lawn lawyers further contend in their court papers.
Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills Vice President Vicky Franco submitted a sworn declaration in support of the motion to compel arbitration.
“Plaintiff provided a handwritten signature affirmatively agreeing to all terms and conditions of the agreement, including the arbitration clause,” Franco said.
A hearing on Forest Lawn’s motion is scheduled April 24, 2026.
According to the suit filed May 29, the plaintiff bought two burial plots in September 2008 and four years later asked that his parents release those two plots to allow the family to have six such contiguous plots, according to the suit. The man’s mother died in July 2021 of the corona virus and she was buried the next month in one of the purchased plots, the suit states.
The plaintiff bought a monument for his mother’s burial site in September of that year. But he and his family did not immediately know that the headstone was installed on the wrong burial site, causing them to visit his mother at the wrong location until April of this year, when his father died. At that time a Forest Lawn representative told him that although his mother was buried in the correct plot, her headstone was installed elsewhere, according to the suit.
The monument was moved to the correct site, but the mistake had caused the plaintiff to suffer significant emotional distress, including shock, grief and ongoing mental anguish from having grieved and visited the wrong site for his mother, the suit states.
“But for the passing of plaintiff’s father and the viewing service, plaintiff would have continued visiting the incorrect gravesite, unaware of the defendant’s error,” according to the suit.