A second family is taking legal action against R.G. Ortiz Funeral Home, alleging their loved one\u2019s body was mistakenly placed in another man\u2019s casket and displayed during another family\u2019s wake.<\/p>\n
Details of the $18 million lawsuit were first provided to News 12 ahead of its filing Monday.<\/p>\n
According to a press release provided to News 12, the lawsuit alleges R.G. Ortiz Funeral Home mixed up the bodies of two deceased men, resulting in a man who was supposed to be directly cremated being dressed in another man\u2019s burial clothes and placed in an open casket for another family\u2019s wake.<\/p>\n
Jose Luis Diaz died on May 17 at 70 years old. According to the release, his wife and children entrusted his body to R.G. Ortiz Funeral Home with instructions that he be directly cremated. Diaz specifically did not want a viewing.<\/p>\n
Instead, the lawsuit alleges Diaz was dressed in another man\u2019s clothing and placed in an open casket for the wake of 84-year-old Jose Daniel Diaz Felipe.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit alleges Diaz Felipe\u2019s family told the funeral director during the viewing that the man in the casket was not their loved one, but the funeral home insisted the man was their father. According to the release, the funeral home later admitted a mistake had been made involving two deceased men with similar names, \u201cJose Diaz.\u201d<\/p>\n
Diaz Felipe\u2019s family filed a separate lawsuit in August over the alleged mix-up.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe dead cannot speak for themselves, what they can do is make their final wishes known,\u201d attorney Phil Rizzuto said, calling what happened \u201ca grotesque betrayal of this family\u2019s trust which is irreversible.\u201d<\/p>\n
The action also names Michelle Ortiz personally, alleging she was a licensed funeral director and the owner, president, CEO and controlling person of R.G. Ortiz Funeral Home.<\/p>\n
According to the release, the complaint alleges loss of sepulcher, breach of contract, negligence and gross negligence and seeks damages, including punitive damages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A second family is taking legal action against R.G. Ortiz Funeral Home, alleging their loved one\u2019s body was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364799,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-364798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}