Judge Alessandroni in Common Pleas Court today overruled questions of law raised against a suit by Mrs. Myrtle Block who is seeking to recover $10,000 damages from Har Nebo Cemetery Company for what she charges was improper burial of her husband. Harry Block, who died January 20, 1929. The widow accordingly will later be permitted to present her testimony in support of her charge to a jury.
She declares that the body of her husband was mistakenly interred by the cemetery company in the wrong section, and that a month later it was reinterred in the proper burial plot but without her knowledge and without compliance with religious rituals. The cemetery company asked for dismissal of the case on the ground principally that damages could not be claimed for mental suffering or nervous shock or disregard of religious and ceremonial customs unaccompanied by a physical injury.
Judge Alessandroni disagreed with the defendant’s plea and ordered the cemetery company to file an anwer to the suit. He said an “act of profanation grievously affecting” one’s religious sensibilities constitutes a valid cause of action, and that “so long as humanity will live in the domain of the spirit as well as of the flesh and endow the mortal remains of dear ones with a reverence approaching sanctity, it must follow that the law will come to the aid of one who has suffered mental anguish by the carelessness or wantonness of another.”
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
