Scheuer v. Wille, 78-2357
| Citation | 385 So.2d 1076 |
| Decision Date | 18 June 1980 |
| Docket Number | No. 78-2357,78-2357 |
| Parties | Joseph SCHEUER and Harriet Rubin, Appellants, v. Richard P. WILLE, Sheriff of Palm Beach County; Dale Allen; and William F. Howard, d/b/a Howard Funeral Home, Appellees. |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Florida (US) |
Richard G. Lubin of Nason, Gildan, Yeager & Lubin, P. A., West Palm Beach, for appellant.
D. Culver Smith, III, of Adams, Coogler, Watson & Smith, West Palm Beach, for appellees Wille and Allen.
Richard H. Gaunt, Jr., Law Offices of Frank G. Cibula, Jr., West Palm Beach, for appellee William F. Howard, d/b/a Howard Funeral Home.
Appellants, plaintiffs below, appeal the entry of an adverse final summary judgment on their complaint charging appellees with the intentional infliction of emotional distress.
The appellants, brother and sister, are residents of New York. When their mother, a widow, died in a Florida hospital, the hospital requested that the local sheriff make arrangements for the removal of the body to a funeral home. After being unable to contact the appellants who were in transit to Florida at the time, Dale Allen, a deputy sheriff, requested, pursuant to a standard procedure of the sheriff's office, that the body be picked up by the Howard Funeral Home whose name was selected from a rotation list prepared by the sheriff's office for such purposes. The funeral home, without attempting to ascertain or contact the deceased's next of kin and with some knowledge of the religious beliefs of the deceased in connection with death and burial, immediately embalmed the body, in violation of the religious tenets of the deceased. 1
The trial court denied the funeral home's motion to dismiss but granted its motion to strike a claim for punitive damages on the basis that the allegations of the complaint were insufficient to sustain such an award. Subsequently, summary judgment was entered in favor of all of the appellees.
We have reviewed the record and believe that summary judgment was properly entered in favor of the sheriff and his employee. However, we believe the entry of summary judgment in favor of the funeral home was erroneous.
To state a cause of action for the intentional infliction of emotional distress a complaint must allege facts which, if proven, would also support an award of punitive damages. Rupp v. Jackson, 238 So.2d 86 (Fla.1970); Kirksey v. Jernigan, 45 So.2d 188 (Fla.1950); Kimple v. Riedel, 133 So.2d 437 (Fla.2d DCA 1961). These decisions, supra, have recognized such a cause of action in a variety of factual situations involving the care of dead bodies and are exemplified by the following statement set out in Kirksey v. Jernigan, supra :
The right to recover, in such cases is especially appropriate to tortious interference with rights...
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