Owner of Funeral Home at Holy Cross Cemetery Suing Achdiocese

A funeral home company is suing the Archdiocese of Los Angeles for at least $250 million for allegedly breaking deals under which the funeral home leased land at six Catholic cemeteries where it would operate funeral homes.

S.E. Funeral Homes of California Inc. filed the lawsuit Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court against the Archbishop of Los Angeles. The suit alleges contract violations and unjust enrichment. It also seeks a court order to prevent the archdiocese from taking possession of the premises.

No one with the archdiocese was immediately available for comment.

According to the complaint, the S.E. Funeral Homes spent about $37 million building funeral homes, chapels, mausoleums and administrative offices on leased land at All Souls Cemetery in Long Beach, Calvary Catholic Cemetery in East Los Angeles, Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Rowland Heights, San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Mission Hills and Santa Clara Cemetery in Oxnard.

In September 1997, the archdiocese and S.E. Funeral Homes agreed to let the plaintiffs to lease land for 40 years to operate chapels and funeral homes at six cemeteries from January 1998 until December 2038, the suit states.

However, on Sept. 5 the archdiocese said it was breaking the leases, effective Friday, saying that S.E. Funeral Homes’ corporate parent Stewart Enterprises Inc. agreed to a reverse merger transaction with Service Corp. International without getting their landlord’s permission, the suit states.

“The archdiocese’s claim that (S.E. Funeral Homes) needed the archdiocese’s permission is ridiculous, a fiction much like one a greedy landlord designs to cast out a good tenant in order to raise the rent or to put pressure on a lucrative business deal to sweeten the lease’s financial terms,” the suit states.

--City News Service

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