CEMETERY FIRM'S BURIAL PRACTICES IN AREA PROBED

August 14, 2024

correction

A story Sunday in the Metro section about the practices of the Hig Corp. reported that Mary and Ernest Adams put a down payment on lots for their family when the couple's son died in 1984. The Adams bought all the family lots on credit, but they paid for their son's lot in full at the time. (Published 5/15/90)

They buried James Diggs at one of the prettiest spots in Maryland National Memorial Park, a grassy plot with a scenic view from the crest of a gently rolling hill.

Or so his relatives thought.

But after they left the 1987 burial service at the Laurel cemetery, something unexpected happened to Diggs's coffin.

The cemetery management, the New York-based Hig Corp., buried Diggs in another site -- a waterlogged lot at the bottom of the incline. His family said he had rejected that plot when Hig representatives tried to sell it to him 10 years earlier.

Diggs's family filed suit against Hig in Prince George's County, where the firm owns and manages three of the county's largest burial grounds and recently won approval to build a controversial industrial park on cemetery property.

The company disputed the family's claim that Diggs owned the plot in question before settling the case last month just before it came to trial. It was one of a number of troublesome issues facing the politically connected company that is represented by attorney Bruce C. Bereano, one of Maryland's most influential lobbyists. Hig's board chairman, Herbert Tenzer, 84, a prominent Manhattan lawyer and philanthropist, is a former New York congressman.

The company has come under scrutiny by state and county agencies for complaints ranging from deceptive sales practices, such as charging interest on burial services, to improper burial of bodies -- including losing a casket and burying bodies in flooded areas.

The office of Maryland State Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. has been investigating since October allegations that Hig has routinely charged high interest rates on some burial services, in violation of state law.

The office's Consumer Protection Division says the probe also will cover complaints that the firm sold top-of-the-line vaults and memorials to customers but substituted inferior products at the time of their funerals. The company denies that complaint and the allegation that it charged illegal interest.

Prince George's environmental officials also are pressuring Hig to correct an erosion problem in an area of about 50 low-cost graves at Lincoln Memorial Cemetery, in part because some concrete vaults became visible after the company began unauthorized grading at the site. The company says it has begun efforts to correct the problem.

A Washington law firm, Koonz, McKenney, Johnson and Regan, has spent six months investigating Hig and says it is preparing to file a class-action lawsuit seeking damages on behalf of thousands of customers who may have been victims of improper charges. Customers pay anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars each for burial at the cemeteries.

The company denies any wrongdoing. In an interview, Tenzer called the allegations "groundless." Bereano said Hig has worked diligently to resolve "each and every consumer complaint that has come to our attention."

But critics say the emotional damage can never be repaired, despite cash settlements.

Diggs's wife, Bessie, and daughter, Portia-serena Richmond, last month reached what Richmond described as a "five-figure" settlement with Hig in the dispute over her father's burial.

Richmond and her mother ordered the body disinterred and bought a lot at another cemetery. But when the coffin of her father was pulled from the ground, they were distressed to find water seeping into it, according to court records.

A complaint filed in federal court alleged that Velma Jenkins, of Northeast Washington, suffered emotional distress and had to be hospitalized after Hig buried her husband, Edward, in the wrong plot at Maryland National in 1982.

The Jenkinses thought that they too had purchased beautiful grassy lots on a tree-lined knoll. But when the funeral procession arrived at the cemetery, caretakers led the mourners to a lot at the bottom of a hill, according to the suit.

Jenkins insisted that the body not be buried until the mistake was corrected. Jenkins, who settled her case against Hig in 1986 for an undisclosed amount of money, alleged that the management buried the body anyway as soon as she left the premises.

Hig contended during the lawsuit that such mistakes "are highly infrequent" among the scores of funerals conducted at its cemeteries, court papers show. Sometimes, the company said, new grave sites must be substituted when tree roots or other obstacles prevent a proper burial.

Harold Greene, of Oxon Hill, and his brother and sister won a $30,000 jury award in 1985 for a similar mistake at Lincoln Memorial Park, where they had buried their mother, Jeanette Greene, after her 1981 heart attack, according to court records and interviews with Harold Greene.

When the family went to visit the grave, a caretaker led them away from the beautiful spot at the crest of a hill where they thought she was buried to another, low-lying grave site.

When the body was dug up, a cemetery manager asked them to inspect the remains. The body inside was not that of Jeanette Greene. The management dug up six more coffins, but the Greene family still could not identify their mother, who had been buried in an auburn wig and blue dress.

They never found the body. Harold Greene said he was bothered for a time by the cemetery's inability to locate his mother. "My only consolation now," he said, "is that I know she's in heaven."

In the midst of mounting pressure, Hig last week signed an agreement with a Pennsylvania firm, Osiris Inc., to sell its cemeteries in Maryland and two burial grounds in Florida. The multimillion-dollar deal does not effect the Annandale cemetery owned by Hig or a 58-acre parcel in Prince George's that was rezoned last year for industrial development.

Tenzer, whose son, Barry, is Hig's president, said the sale is not linked to complaints against the firm. He said the investment group "wants to do other things."

Since entering the local cemetery business in 1957, Hig has evolved into one of the Washington area's leading -- and most politically active -- cemetery companies.

It entered the business with a part ownership of Carver Memorial Gardens, an all-black cemetery that became Maryland National after it was integrated. The firm later bought the Lincoln cemetery on Suitland Road and Cedar Hill Cemetery on Pennsylvania Avenue. It also acquired Pleasant Valley Cemetery in Annandale and two Florida cemeteries.

The Tenzers and their partners also set up a plethora of spin-off corporations for the marketing of cemetery services.

In Maryland, the group incorporated such specialized companies as the Baltimore-Washington Pet Cemetery, Ukranian Memorial Gardens, Memorial Acceptance Corp., and Innovative Marketing Technologies Inc., specializing in the sale of memorial crypts.

Like many cemetery firms, the company engaged in aggressive marketing techniques, including door-to-door sales and telemarketing. Fliers for the 135-acre Cedar Hill Cemetery, for example, advertised two grave sites for the price of one.

Former sales agents for the company say that Hig did a brisk business in metropolitan Washington's black churches, where salesmen often visited and signed up dozens of customers.

"The cemetery owners basically targeted individuals of low socio-economic status and primarily blacks," said Washington lawyer Patrick M. Regan, who has reviewed thousands of contracts in preparation for the class-action suit.

Herbert Tenzer referred questions about sales practices to his son, Barry, who did not return calls. Bereano said Hig's sales practices were not targeted toward any group but reflected "changing communities and populations."

Typically, purchasers could not afford the full price of burial services, Regan said. Files compiled by the lawyer from former sales agents show that Hig accepted down payments of as low as $20 on a $2,000 purchase, with the remainder financed at interest rates of more than 18 percent.

Mary and Ernest Adams, of Northwest Washington, for example, signed a contract for $3,914 for lots and burial services for their family when their son died in 1984, according to Regan's records and Ernest Adams. They put $100 down and agreed to pay an additional $3,002 in finance charges over 84 installments. "If you've got somebody you need to bury and you don't have the money, I figure they've got you between a rock and a hard place," Adams said.

Since 1984, Maryland state law has forbidden interest charges on many funeral and cemetery services purchased in advance. While cemeteries are allowed to charge interest on the burial lots, they cannot assess interest on "interment services" offered by the cemeteries or on headstones and monuments.

Bereano, who lobbied for Hig when the 1984 bill was debated in the Maryland legislature and is representing them in the legal proceedings with the attorney general's inquiry, said the measure contains many areas that are "subject to interpretation." He reiterated that the company has charged interest only as state law allows.

In September, Secretary of State Winfield M. Kelly Jr. asked the Attorney General's Office to look into the matter. In a letter to Curran, Kelly wrote that his review of Hig contracts showed the firm charging interest on "goods which have not been delivered, making the assessment of finance charges on these a violation of law."

Critics say that the state has dragged its feet on the investigation. But Rebecca Bowen, an assistant attorney general in charge of the case, said the matter poses tricky legal issues.

Bowen said that scheduling problems with Bereano, one of the most active lobbyists in Annapolis, had slowed the inquiry.

Bereano said he persuaded the office to defer consideration of the matter until the end of the legislative session in April. But he said the firm is actively at work resolving the few formal complaints made with the consumer fraud division.

Regan said the few formal complaints lodged with state and county agencies are not an accurate indicator of consumer dissatisfaction with the firm. Many of Hig's customers, he said, are either unfamiliar with or wary of dealing with agencies or the courts.

Staff writer Debbie M. Price and staff researcher Bridget Roeber contributed to this report.

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