One funeral home owner may soon need to say RIP to his business.
An insurer is suing Gatens-Harding Funeral Home, based in Poca, West Virginia, for allegedly falsifying the death and memorial rites of 111 clients who enrolled in pre-need funeral services, according to the West Virginia Record.
Homesteaders Life Company (HLC), which provided these contracts, furnished co-owner Chad Harding with a commission every time he sold a pre-need package to a member of the public. It believes that Harding began submitting fraudulent claims in late 2012, and continued for some time thereafter.
Its complaint outlines Harding’s actions, which include being “engaged in a continuous pattern and practice of submitting materially false death claims to HLC, by telephone, and filling out and signing materially false bank drafts, wherein he fraudulently misrepresented that the … consumers had died … and that the contracted-for funeral services had been provided, when, in fact, said consumers were no deceased and said funeral services had not been provided.”
In total, Homesteaders paid out more than $900,000 for these claims, many of which were the result of Harding signing documents that certified a date of death and confirmed that “funeral services and goods had been provided.”
$136,719.73 was distributed to Harding and other employees, $14,667.23 was given to the funeral home and $7,242.62 was dispensed to Harding himself. The insurer is seeking compensatory damages, actual damages, punitive damages, as well as an array of other relief and fees.
The funeral home addressed the upcoming lawsuit in a Facebook post, and asked the town for their support in the matter.
"We want to say thank you to all the people that have called, emailed and text to say I love you and we support you,” it reads. “There are always two sides to every story. We are not perfect and yes we make mistakes. Our attorney is working to get his resolved as soon as possible and if we owe anything it will be paid completely. We appreciate your continued prayers.”
