Family Discovers Grave Error: Lawsuit Filed Against Forest Lawn Memorial Park
A family in Los Angeles discovered a grave error when they realized they had been visiting an empty burial plot for nearly four years due to a misplaced headstone. The family of Hasmik Demirchayn, who immigrated to the US from the Soviet Union in the 1980s, had been grieving and celebrating occasions at the wrong grave site. Marine, Hasmik's daughter, expressed her guilt and sorrow for unknowingly visiting the incorrect gravestone, feeling like she had lost her mother all over again.
After Hasmik's passing in 2021, her children buried her in a plot they had purchased in 2008 at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills. They regularly visited the grave to honor their mother, only to discover the mistake during their father's funeral service in April. The mortician revealed that the headstone was placed above an empty plot, while Hasmik was buried in a different location without a marker.
Despite the cemetery correcting the error by moving the headstone to the correct burial spot, the family decided to file a lawsuit against Forest Lawn Mortuary and the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Association. The lawsuit includes claims of fraud, breach of contract, negligence, and emotional distress, seeking compensatory and punitive damages to prevent similar mistakes in the future.
The family's attorney emphasized that while the cemetery took corrective action, the emotional distress caused by the error cannot be erased by apologies and adjustments. The family expressed their ongoing grief and pain, feeling that the years of mourning and visiting the wrong grave cannot be undone by a simple apology and relocation of the headstone.