$5.5 Million Awarded to Family After Deceased Father’s Body is Improperly Handled by Funeral Home

Marielle Bischoff Wurstle’s beloved father passed away at the end of May of 2021. She and her family selected a local funeral home, Affordable Cremation Solutions, to cremate his body. After his body was taken in by the funeral home, the family was unable to reach them for over a week. Anxiety was growing, too, as Maine was experiencing record heat. After about a week and a half, the family finally reached someone at the home who said that their father was refrigerated and that he would be cremated soon. The father was never refrigerated and never cremated. He was rotting in the basement of the funeral home alongside 11 other dead, rotting bodies. The way Marielle found out was because someone waiting at a bus stop near the funeral home could smell a terrible smell and called the police. The local news reported on it and Marielle saw it during her lunch break at work.

Marielle Bischoff Wurstle and her family were represented by Meryl Poulin, of Gideon Asen LLC. They received $5,500,000 for the emotional distress caused by this incident.