A San Antonio appeals court has overturned a jury verdict of more than $1 million against Mission Park Funeral Chapels & Cemeteries over a funeral urn destroyed by an excavator during a 2021 burial service.
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A San Antonio appeals court last week overturned a more than $1 million jury award to three Bexar County family members, who alleged their mother’s urn was destroyed in 2021 at San Jose Burial Park. Shown is the entrance to the cemetery.
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A San Antonio appeals court has overturned a jury verdict of more than $1 million against Mission Park Funeral Chapels & Cemeteries over an urn destroyed by an excavator during a 2021 burial service.
Three siblings had sued Mission Park, co-owned by Richard “Dick” Tips and his wife Kristin Tips, former chair of the Texas Funeral Service Commission, for negligence over the incident at San Jose Burial Park. Gov. Greg Abbott appointed her to the commission in 2017 and she served as chair from May 2024 until her controversial tenure ended with her resignation in March.
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RELATED: Jury awards 3 Bexar County siblings over $1M after their mother’s urn, ashes are destroyed
A jury found Mission Park negligent and awarded siblings Deidre Kollars, Yvonne Rigal and Peter Moreno a combined $1.025 million in January 2025 for mental anguish. They alleged in a 2021 lawsuit that Mission Park “carelessly unearthed the wrong burial plot” before a service for their father, Pedro G. Moreno Jr., despite markers indicating where the burial should take place.
A cemetery caretaker dug the new burial plot with an excavator rather than a shovel, the siblings alleged. The excavator’s arm broke their mother’s urn, tore the bag holding the ashes and spread them in the dirt and grass, they said.
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Diana Jane Moreno was 54 when she died on Sept. 30, 2005, but her urn was not interred until 2009. Peter Moreno Jr.’s urn was to be buried next to his wife’s.
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It was one of various alleged mishaps at Mission Park. The most notorious occurred more than a decade ago and involved the disappearance of a 25-year-old woman’s body before it could be cremated. A jury awarded the parents of Julie Mott $8 million after finding the funeral home had been negligent. The parties later settled the dispute. The body has never been found.
Legal standard for mental anguish
In a ruling Wednesday, the 4th Court of Appeals found that while Kollars and her brother described a deeply unsettling experience, their testimony did not meet the legal standard for compensable mental anguish. It rendered a take-nothing judgment for Mission Park on the siblings’ claims.
Justices Lori I. Valenzuela and H. Todd McCray also set aside the $500,000 awarded to Rigal and ordered a new trial on her claim even though they found she presented enough evidence of her mental anguish. The court said Rigal gave evidence of ongoing effects on her daily life — she had breakdowns in the shower triggered by memories of the incident and sought grief counseling. Her counselor and daughter also described her crying, anxiety and depression.
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The two justices added that a jury will consider whether the city of San Antonio shares responsibility for the incident because it owned and operated San Jose Burial Park in 2009 when Peter Moreno Jr. arranged to have his wife’s remains buried.
The city later leased the cemetery to Mission Park.
Is city responsible?
Prior to the trial, Mission Park sought to designate the city as a responsible third party because its records had the wrong location for Diana Moreno’s urn. If not for the city’s negligence, Mission Park alleged, “the event giving rise to this lawsuit would not have occurred.”
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The siblings objected, and state District Judge Antonia ‘Toni’ Arteaga agreed, leaving jurors to decide only whether Mission Park was negligent.
The jury awarded $175,000 to Kollars and $350,000 to Peter Moreno.
RELATED: San Antonio funeral home trial over switched bodies ends as jury deliberates
Justice Adrian A. Spears II agreed that Kollars and her brother’s claims should be dismissed. But he dissented from sending Rigal’s claim back for trial, reasoning that Mission Park did not handle Diana Moreno’s remains when they were originally buried and therefore had no legal relationship with her family. He concluded all three siblings should take nothing on their claims.
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Mark Macias, a San Antonio attorney representing Mission Park, and Anthony Malley, a Beaumont lawyer representing the siblings, didn’t respond to requests for comment Monday.
Another case heading to trial
Macias also represents Mission Park in a pending lawsuit brought by Mary Lou Salinas’ family, who allege the funeral home mixed up her body with Catalina R. Cervantes’ in November 2020. Salinas was allegedly buried next to Cervantes’ husband. The Cervanteses’ sons later settled a negligence lawsuit with Mission Park in April 2025 while jurors were deliberating during the trial, which lasted more than a week. The amount was not disclosed.
Salinas’ family filed a similar negligence lawsuit. San Antonio attorney Alex Katzman represents both families.
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READ MORE: Texas funeral regulator Kristin Tips resigns after turbulent tenure
Mission Park co-owner Kristin Tips’ tenure as chair of the Texas Funeral Service Commission was marked by a series of controversies that engulfed the agency. It was rocked by the firing of its executive director and other senior staff, followed by a whistleblower lawsuit alleging retaliation and accusing Tips of using her position to advance policies that could benefit her own funeral business. The suit is ongoing.
While chair, Tips actively pushed for legislation that would have limited lawsuits against funeral homes, including proposals to cap mental anguish damages — the primary form of compensation in many cases involving mishandling of remains. None of the bills advanced.