A grieving California family filed a lawsuit against a San Jose funeral home and its service director, alleging a shocking mishandling of human remains that turned their mourning into further trauma.
According to the lawsuit, first reported by ABC 7, a funeral director at the Lima Family Erickson Memorial Chapel handed a father a bag he believed contained his late son’s clothing. It in fact held part of his son’s brain.
The alleged discovery is a “horror no family should ever endure,” the lawsuit, cited by KRON, reads
The lawsuit concerns the death of 27-year-old Alexander Pinon, who passed away at his home May 19.
His family had contracted with the mortuary, paying more than $10,000 for a “full‑service memorial tribute package” that included embalming, dressing, and transportation, the suit states. The family asked that he be buried in different clothing than what he had worn at the time of his death.
On June 4, according to the legal complaint, funeral director Anita “Anette” Singh handed Pinon’s father a bag marked for biohazard material, telling him it contained his son’s clothes.
Trusting the funeral professional, the father took the bag home and emptied it into his washing machine, only to find it contained human brain matter rather than clothing.
Shocked by the mix‑up, he scooped the brain material, which he did not know at the time was his son’s, from the washer, placed it back into the red bag, and returned it to the mortuary later that day.
The lawsuit alleges that Singh took the bag without explanation, offering no apology or information. Singh only said “I’ll take it from here,” Habbas told ABC 7.
Alexander was buried the next day at Oak Hill Memorial Cemetery.
Weeks later, the lawsuit claims, the family learned from an internal whistleblower that the bag did indeed contain Alexander’s brain, and that the funeral director had allegedly placed it in a box and left it in the funeral home’s courtyard for roughly two‑and‑a‑half months after the mix-up. Another employee eventually discovered it and bacme “overwhelmed with the smell” or “a rotting human brain,” ABC 7 reports.
"Don't get me wrong, errors can happen," the family’s attorney, Samer Habbas, told the outlet “But what cannot happen, and what should not happen, is that you cover up your errors, and that's what the funeral home has done here."
The treatment of Alexander’s remains and the lack of transparency has caused the family “extreme emotional distress, trauma, and mental anguish,” according to the lawsuit, cited by KRON.
“Discovering one’s own child’s brain matter in a washing machine and then having to scoop it out...is a horror no family should ever endure,” it added.
The lawsuit also accuses the funeral home, the mortuary’s Santa Clara location, and Singh of negligence, fraud, breach of contract, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
The Independent has contacted the Lima Family Erickson Memorial Chapel and its parent company, Service Corporation International, which operates the chapel under the Dignity Memorial brand, for comment.
In a statement to ABC 7, an SCI spokesperson said: "Due to active litigation, we won't be commenting on this matter."
The family is also seeking a plan to reunite Alexander’s brain with the rest of his remains as part of efforts to address the aftermath of this traumatic incident, ABC 7 reports.
They demand a jury trial in this case.
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