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It turns out the body of the 93-year-old Korean woman whose death they were mourning in a Westchester cemetery had been left back at the funeral home in New Jersey.
Another corpse had been dressed in her clothing, placed in the casket and brought that morning to a funeral in Leonia. It was then driven 25 miles north in a procession to Valhalla, NY.
The body had already been lowered into the grave when the mistake was finally acknowledged, loved ones of the late Kyung Ja Kim of Englewood Cliffs contend in a lawsuit filed Monday.
The suit filed in Superior Court in Hackensack seeks $50 million in damages from Central Funeral Home of New Jersey and Blackley Funeral Home and Cremation Services, Inc. of Ridgefield.
Family members plan to attend a news conference at their lawyer's office in Fort Lee on Tuesday to discuss the “great shock, emotional distress, and psychological pain they experienced” after “a stranger wearing their mother’s clothing was placed in her coffin in error and ultimately lowered into their mother’s grave,” according to a statement.
Daily Voice left a message with an answering service operator for the funeral home after obtaining a copy of the statement and the lawsuit Monday afternoon.
Family sought traditional Korean funeral, burial
According to the suit, Mrs. Kim had lived for many years with her daughter, Kummi Kim, and her husband, Taichul Kim, in Englewood Cliffs.
She died there on Nov. 10, 2021.
Kummi Kim made arrangements later that day with Haemin Gina Chong, one of the funeral home’s directors, for a traditional Korean funeral and burial, the suit says.
Two Blackley employees collected the body that night. While finalizing arrangements the next day, Kummi Kim gave Chong a photo of her mother (same as above), as well as dentures, specially selected clothing and other personal effects “to be applied to the body.”
On the morning of Nov. 13, another woman dressed in Mrs. Kim’s clothing was brought in a casket to Promise Church in Leonia.
“Many family members traveled long distances to celebrate the passing of the decedent in the congregation that she helped to establish and participated in over many years,” the lawsuit says.
Twenty minutes before the funeral, the suit says, Kummi Kim told Chong that the body in the casket didn’t look like her mother.
Chong, it says, “responded with a very clear expression of denial and dismay over the question as if [Kummi] did not appreciate a different appearance after death.”
The daughter rationalized to herself that the altered appearance was “attributable to the embalming process and application of heavy mortuary makeup, fake hair and/or some type of filler such as Botox.”
The church service begins
The funeral service had begun when Chong allegedly contactor the daughter of another woman whose arrangements her funeral home was handling.
She asked about identifying features, such as the amount of hair, the suit says.
The other woman’s daughter then texted “multiple photos” that showed her late mother “from varying angles,” it says.
That’s who was in the casket.
The funeral service ended around 10 a.m. and the casket was loaded into the hearse for a procession to Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla.
Everyone was still en route when Chong called Kim roughly a half-hour later.
She told the grieving woman that if she didn’t think the body was her mother’s, then “we should turn all the cars around,” the suit alleges.
Chong "did not otherwise convey any indication or suspicion" that they had the wrong body, nor did she explain the reason for the "sudden and rather unusual message," it adds.
Kummi Kim was "confused and taken by surprise as she was grieving over the passing of her mother while traveling to what she thought to be her mother’s final place of rest," the suit says.
She believed the procession should continue to the cemetery, it says.
It got there at 11:30 a.m.
'To the surprise of all': a last-second interruption
Finding Chong outside the administrative building, Kummi Kim "commented to her that the decedent likely appeared different due to the application of some type of filler such as Botox."
Chong "did not reply; but nodded her head, even though [she] knew that no filler had been applied" during the preparation of the body in the casket.
The graveside service began at 11:45 a.m.
At 12:10 p.m., cemetery workers began lowering the casket containing the wrong body into the burial plot.
At that point Chong showed Kim a photo of the body that had been left behind in Ridgefield.
It was Kim's mother.
The casket had just been lowered into the grave when Chong, "to the surprise of all," stopped the cemetery employees and told them to bring it back up, the suit contends.
The casket was then put into the hearse, which headed back to Ridgefield.
All this was done "to the surprise of the plaintiffs and without discussion nor explanation," the suit says.
Chong later explained, it says, that "there was a confusion over bodies and the wrong body was placed in the casket of the decedent for funeral, church and burial services.”
As if that weren’t enough, Mrs. Kim’s dentures had been placed under the pillow of the other woman – who had all her teeth, the suit contends.
Family members requested an “urgent funeral service” at Blackley’s. The Promise Church wasn’t available because of its Sunday Mass schedule, they explained.
A makeshift funeral was then held.
Unfortunately, the suit says, “a number of out-of-town family members and guests were unable to remain for and attend the service, including three (3) of the decedent’s grandchildren and others who had made last-minute travel arrangements to be present for the Saturday funeral service but had scheduled for an immediate return.”
Chong and her employees then brought the casket to Kensico for burial.
$9,000 refund
During a meeting the next night, the suit says, Chong admitted the mixup was “attributable to the negligent and reckless failure to properly identify the body prior to commencement of preparation of the bodies for funeral services.”
She and another director “acknowledged that they had still not yet informed the family of the other decedent” of their mishandling of the bodies, it says.
They then offered the Kim family a $9,000 refund, the suit says.
The funeral directors and their employees were entrusted, under state law, with treating the body “within the parameters of human decency and appropriate respect to the decedent and her family,” the lawsuit notes.
It was their duty to protect against “misidentification, loss, mishandling of the body, mutilation and indignities,” it says.
They also were required by law, it says, “not to invade [the family’s] right of proper interment of the decedent, and, to enable and provide the environment for peace and solace of the final leave-taking.”
The defendants, instead, “negligently, grossly negligently and recklessly failed to undertake reasonable and prudent chain of custody.”
The ordeal caused loved ones “severe emotional and traumatic psychological distress, including great mental pain and suffering, and emotional distress from the traumatic experience of the course of events,” the suit says.
They are seeking $10 million each for five separate counts outlined in the lawsuit filed on their behalf by Michael Maggiano of the Fort Lee law firm of Maggiano, DiGirolamo and Lizzi.
Any money collected as a result of the suit will be donated to The Promise Church.
A news conference with the family members is scheduled at the law office at 201 Columbia Avenue at 10 a.m. Tuesday, July 26.
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