Family says SLO County mortuary pulled a ‘bait and switch’ at funeral. Now they’re suing
A family from Fresno is accusing a Los Osos mortuary of pulling a “bait and switch” scheme on them during the Celebration of Life for their deceased loved one, a ploy they say was confirmed after they hired a private investigator.
A lawsuit filed Friday in San Luis Obispo Superior Court by four relatives of Cheri Warlin, who died in June 2018, says the funeral director and another employee sold them a crypt before suddenly telling them it wasn’t available just as they were in the process of interring their deceased family member.
Lawsuits only represent one side of the story, and the mortuary has not yet had time to file a response in court. Requests for comment to an answering service for the mortuary were not returned Saturday.
Phone and email requests for comment to the attorney who filed the lawsuit, Dustin Tardiff, were not returned either.
Details of the lawsuit
The lawsuit states that Cheri Warlin died in 2018 after a brief illness. Her sister, who lives in Los Osos, and three other family members checked out spaces at Los Osos Valley Mortuary, as Warlin reportedly had requested as her resting place.
During the sales pitch, the lawsuit states, the family specifically told funeral director Anita Stanchev and employee Matthew Mitchell that Cheri Warlin wished to be interred at the Los Osos mortuary, that the family acquire a companion crypt for her sister upon her eventual death, that the interment be at eye level in case of periodic flooding but not too high to place flowers in the receptacle, and that the interment space not be near the northeastern end of the property closest to where the sewage treatment facility had been constructed a few years earlier.
After saying they could accommodate those specifications, however, the mortuary allegedly tried to sell the family several spaces that didn’t meet those wishes, the lawsuit says.
Eventually, the two employees showed the family a mausoleum space that did. For the companion crypt space, the family ultimately paid a total of $20,331 after signing an agreement, the lawsuit says.
Cheri Warlin’s funeral was held at the Los Osos property on June 29, 2018, according to the lawsuit, and a Celebration of Life was to take place at Tim and Cheri Warlin’s home shortly after.
But as funeral services were winding down and attendees were saying their goodbyes, the complaint states, Stanchev pulled Tim Warlin aside to tell him there was “a problem.”
“... (The) interment space provided under the agreement was actually unavailable and (there) was no space available for Cheri, whose body remained in a casket on rollers in front of the suddenly ‘unavailable’ interment space, which had already been paid for under the agreement,” the complaint reads.
Upon learning the news, the family was “extremely upset,” and employee Mitchell “actually ran away from Cheri’s family” when asked for an explanation, the lawsuit says.
Stanchev allegedly told Tim Warlin that not only was the promised space unavailable, that particular space had actually been sold in 1975 and wasn’t even a companion crypt, and no other spot in the entire property could meet the family’s specifications.
The staff allegedly then tried to show the family around the property again for a substitute location, as the Celebration of Life was happening at Cheri Warlin’s home.
“The plaintiffs, distraught and distressed, found themselves in a high-pressure sales situation” where the mortuary “tried to sell them other interment spaces which they had previously declined as not meeting the family’s specific wishes,” the lawsuit claims.
The hard sell dragged on for hours, the family says in the lawsuit, and a few members reportedly missed the entire Celebration of Life before they were allegedly told by Stanchev that she would locate alternative accommodations at another mortuary.
Four days after the funeral, Cheri Warlin’s sister found another interment space at Mission Cemetery in San Luis Obispo — a single crypt and all that was available on short notice, the lawsuit says. The new spot rests 20 feet above ground, making placing flowers extremely difficult, the lawsuit says.
Family hires a private investigator
In 2019, the family, suspicious of Los Osos Valley Mortuary, hired a private investigator at the suggestion of their attorney. The investigator allegedly posed as a prospective customer to inquire about an interment space that met the identical specifications as the family had requested.
The lawsuit says Mitchell tried to sell the investigator the exact same spot that Stanchev told the family had been sold in 1975, but allegedly did disclose that the space was not a companion crypt.
The family, believing the mortuary was swindling prospective customers, then filed the lawsuit.
The plaintiffs include four of the family members — Janice and Brian Der Garabedian, and Timothy and Brent Warlin — whom each seek general and punitive damages in excess of $50,000, as well as a recouping of legal fees, the lawsuit says.
A case management conference is scheduled in June.
This story was originally published February 22, 2020 at 6:40 PM.
