Bonaparte v. Fraternal Funeral Home

• Citation: 175 S.E. 137,206 N.C. 652
• Decision Date: 20 June 1934
• Docket Number: 585.
• Parties: BONAPARTE v. FRATERNAL FUNERAL HOME et al.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

175 S.E. 137

206 N.C. 652

BONAPARTE v. FRATERNAL FUNERAL HOME et al.

No. 585.

Supreme Court of North Carolina

June 20, 1934

Appeal from Superior Court, Forsyth County; Hill, Special Judge.

Civil action by Ida Bonaparte against the Fraternal Funeral Home and others. From a judgment in favor of the plaintiff, the defendants appeal.

Affirmed.

Surviving wife may recover punitive damages for mutilation or unlawful detention of husband's dead body by third person if such conduct is willful, wanton, reckless, or unlawful.

Arbitrary withholding of dead body of husband from widow, as security for debt or for services rendered, is unlawful.

On the night of April 28, 1933, Cleveland Bonaparte was shot by a police officer. An ambulance was called to take him to the hospital, and he died about the time the ambulance reached there. The plaintiff is the wife of the deceased, and instituted this action to recover compensatory and punitive damages from the defendants for the unlawful and wrongful detention and mutilation of the body of her husband.

Plaintiff said: "On the night of April 28, 1933, I was at my home. I saw Brack Dulin that evening about an hour and a half or two hours after the death of my husband. He came there and asked me for the body and said they had gotten it from the hospital and asked for the body, and I said, 'No, I want Mr. Fitch to have the body,' and I said, 'You all turn it over to Mr. Fitch.' I told them to not bother the body until I got down there or either I would send Mr. Fitch for the body. * * * He asked me if he should tack up crepe and I told him no, that Mr. Fitch would tack up crepe when he got there, and Dulin went out there and was going to tack it up anyhow, and Mrs. Johnson came out there and begged him not to and he took it down. * * * Later on that evening I went to the funeral home and made demand for the body of my husband to Mr. Brown-Clark S. Brown. * * * Mr. Brown told me he was working on the body embalming the body, and I said: 'I sent word down here for you not to bother the body until I came down here,' and he said, 'Well I'm working on the body and you can't get it.' I asked him twice for the body, and then they took me and put me in the car. I was so worried I just had broken down and they just took me out. * * * Robert E. Fitch was in there with me and came out to the car and talked to me later. Fitch got the body out about twelve o'clock or it may have been later than that. Before I got the body I had to pay Clark S. Brown $50.00 and I have a receipt for the $50.00. Before I went to the Funeral Home I was in bed. While I was there I was so nervous and weak I couldn't hardly talk. After that my condition got worse. I never gave them any orders to embalm the body or to keep it, but they said they had orders to embalm the body but didn't say who gave them the orders. I had told Dulin not to do anything to the body except to turn it over to the Fitch Undertaking Company. I was at the place of business of Clark S. Brown and the Fraternal Funeral Home for an hour or a little over, trying to get the body. * * * When they got me home they had to put me to bed and tried to get a doctor, but it was so late they didn't get one until the next morning. * * * I did not see the body of my husband on that night. I asked at the Fraternal Funeral Home if I could see him and they said no, they were working on him. It was Clark Brown that told me that. I told him not to do anything else to the body but turn it over to Mr. Fitch. I don't know what the fifty dollars that I paid was for, but I was willing to pay five dollars for what they had done, going to the Hospital and getting the body and taking it back to his place. I wanted Fitch Undertaking Company to look after the body of my husband because that was his request; he always said he wanted Mr. Fitch to have his body if he died first."

Fitch testified that he was manager of the Fitch Funeral Home and that he was called to the home of the plaintiff and requested to take charge of her husband's body. He said: "I went with Mrs. Bonaparte to Mr. Brown's office at the Fraternal Funeral Home. * * * When I went there with Mrs Bonaparte that night it was for the purpose of getting her husband's body. * * * Brown told Mrs. Bonaparte the charges were $50.00, and I told her she would have to get it up. * * * She asked Brown who gave him orders to embalm her husband and he told her that it was his custom to go ahead and embalm bodies when they come in if the family is here. We always get the consent of the family before we do it if the family is reachable. * * * The regular price for embalming is $25.00. The ambulance charge or removal charge is $5.00. * * * I did not have $50.00 with me, but I returned with $50.00 in about forty-five minutes and paid it to Dulin for the embalming of Mr. Bonaparte. I paid it at the request of Mrs Bonaparte. As a result of paying the $50.00 he turned the body over to us. * * * When we went to see Clark Brown that night he discussed the matter in a business-like way with me. Told me as soon as he was paid for his...