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Funerals 'R' Us
A small-town funeral director -- and author of "The Undertaking" -- says franchising the "death-care" business hurts consumers.
By Thomas Lynch
[09/29/99]

Bauer denies adultery reports
The GOP presidential candidate schedules a Wednesday press conference to refute the new rumors swirling around his campaign.
By Anthony York
[09/28/99]

L.A. not so confidential
A police informer blows the whistle on some old news -- no one has been able to police the LAPD.
By Marc Cooper
[09/28/99]

Let it be me
Wherein the author travels back in time to encounter "Morris" as he brushes up against "Reagan" -- and the rest is "history."
By David Corn
[09/28/99]

McCain steps up attacks on Bush
In his official campaign kickoff, the Arizona senator comes out swinging against the Texas governor and GOP presidential front-runner.
By Jake Tapper
[09/28/99]

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According to the lawsuit, after the family insisted the wrong body was in the casket, a staff member told them the funeral home would "spend whatever money it takes to prove you are mistaken." In 1996, Washington's Department of Licensing reprimanded the SCI funeral home and fined it $4,000 for mixing up the two bodies. In the lawsuit, SCI has blamed the body switch on a company that transported the two bodies to the funeral home. The case will go to trial sometime next year.

In Texas, the company faces a lawsuit brought by the parents of television anchor Tres Hood, whose body was allegedly mishandled while it was being embalmed at an SCI funeral home in Dallas. Hood's mother Gayle Johnson, assumed his body was going to be embalmed in her home town of Wichita Falls. Instead, the procedure was done in Dallas at an SCI funeral home that had been investigated by state regulators for allegedly using illegal embalming practices.

According to the lawsuit, Hood's body began leaking embalming fluid shortly after the procedure was done and when his casket was put into a mausoleum, "problems with odors, gnats and fluid seepage began to occur."

In central Florida, lawyers filed suit against an SCI funeral home after an aggressive salesman apparently took advantage of an elderly widow who had been mentally impaired by a stroke. After several visits over a two-month period, the salesman obtained a series of checks and a pre-paid funeral contract for funeral goods and services costing more than $125,000.

According to the lawsuit, filed in Polk County, Fla., the funeral package included a casket costing $39,785 and a mausoleum costing $52,738. The suit says the widow was "not mentally capable to understand the contractual arrangements" and that she relied "solely upon the representations made by the Defendants." SCI denies the allegations. The suit goes to trial in November.

SCI general counsel James Shelger refused to comment on the lawsuits in Washington and Texas. In the Florida case, Shelger said SCI is "confident that our position will be favorably viewed in the course of litigation."

Perhaps most worrisome for the company is a massive class action lawsuit filed on behalf of shareholders in February, shortly after the company's stock price plummeted. The suit claims that Waltrip and other SCI officials hid relevant facts from stockholders.

SCI blamed the revenue shortfall on "reduced mortality rates in the Company's major markets resulting in fewer funerals performed at the Company's locations." The announcement caused a massive sell-off of SCI's stock, causing its stock price to fall from $34 7/16 to $19 1/8 in one day.

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