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Former funeral director ordered to pay $18,000 |
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Written by DeadGirl
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Thursday, 26 August 2004 |
August 26, 2004
THOMAS DOYLE
Victoria Advocate
A man who was a Victoria funeral director has been ordered to pay $18,000 to the state of Texas for selling pre-paid funeral services without a license.
Vernon Daniels Jr., the one-time owner of K.C. McDaniels Funeral Home, was ordered to pay $6,000 in civil penalties and $12,301 in restitution for selling pre-paid funeral services without a license, according to a July 1 ruling issued by Administrative Law Judge Larry Craddock under an action brought by the Texas Department of Banking.
The matter has been turned over to the Office of the Attorney General for collection.
It was unclear when the K.C. McDaniels Funeral Home, formerly located at 602 N. Navarro, closed, but the city purchased the property in April of 2001 to make way for a new railroad underpass.
Attempts to contact Daniels by phone and in person at a house he owns in Victoria were unsuccessful.
Pre-paid funeral service providers are licensed by the banking department, since funds paid by customers are put into a restricted bank account or trust, said Russell Reese, director of special audits for the department.
Under a pre-paid funeral contract, a licensed seller will collect payments from a client in advance to lock in the price of a funeral to spare the customer from increasing costs, explained Gary Shaffer, president of the Texas Funeral Directors Association.
That money is then put into a trust or restricted bank account in the hope that the earnings will outpace increases in funeral costs, he said. The funeral home is assured payment, and the client gets a cost break and can arrange a funeral in advance, allowing everyone to win, he said.
However, Reese said he has no evidence Daniels ever had a license to sell such contracts, or that he put the money he collected into a trust or bank account.
Daniels never appeared to defend himself at an April 22, 2004 hearing and did not respond to several letters sent by the banking department, Reese said. In fact, he said, the banking department has had no successful contact with Daniels since the proceedings against him began.
"I want my money," said Sylvia Johnson, an Austin resident who filed the complaint against Daniels. While she could only prove her family paid $12,301 dollars to Daniels, Johnson said she believes the amount to be significantly more.
Johnson paid $3,724 to Daniels for a pre-paid funeral contract for her uncle. Her mother, Jessie Mae Thomas of Victoria, paid $8,577 to Daniels for pre-paid contracts for two of her children and herself.
Johnson said her mother, Jessie Mae Thomas of Victoria, took out pre-paid contracts for all six of her children and herself in the early '90s. None of the contracts were fulfilled, Johnson said.
In 1999 Johnson found out what her mother had done, and paid off the two contracts on which her mother still owed, those of two of Johnson's brothers, she said. Johnson also said she paid in full for the contract for her uncle.
The issue came to a head when Johnson's uncle told her in May 2002 that he wanted to use another funeral home, and she should get her money back from Daniels.
But Johnson said she wasn't able to make contact with Daniels until church one Sunday. In their conversation Daniels told her he didn't have her money because it was in a trust, she said. Johnson said she didn't like Daniels' attitude so she looked into his qualifications when she returned to Austin. When she found he wasn't licensed to sell pre-paid funeral services, she filed a complaint.
Her mother was quite upset by the news, she said.
Thomas said she worked two jobs to help pay for the funeral contracts for her children in case the worst should happen, she said.
"It made sense to me to make preparations where you could," she said.
While she's sure her children would cover the cost if she should pass away, Thomas said she can no longer afford to personally pay for her own burial.
In her last contact with Daniels, Thomas said he offered to pay her back in installments, but she declined. She hasn't heard from him since.
If Daniels had been licensed and gone out of business, said Reese of the Texas Department of Banking, the family could be eligible to access a guarantee fund set aside to protect people in such an eventuality.
But since Daniels had no license, the money is unavailable to the victims, he said. The state tried to auction off the contracts to another local funeral home, but since there is no money in a trust or restricted bank account to transfer with the contract, a funeral home would essentially have to fulfill the contracts for free, Reese said.
According to state records the pre-paid funeral services license wasn't the only one Daniels lacked.
As of July 1, 2001, Daniels' license as a funeral director in the state of Texas was suspended, according to state records, said Donna Potter, administrator of consumer affairs and compliance for the Texas Funeral Service Commission. The funeral home's facility license expired in September 2000, she said.
A person conducting funeral director business for compensation without a license can be charged with a class B misdemeanor of impersonating a funeral director in the state of Texas, Potter said.
Evidence of such a violation could include an obituary in a newspaper in which an unlicensed person or facility provided funeral services, she said.
On Oct. 13, 2001, the Advocate published an obituary for Lillie Mae Todd in which K.C. McDaniels Funeral Home was listed as providing services. And again on Oct. 14, the Advocate published a death notice for Willie Bergans in which the home is also said to be arranging services.
On Feb. 3, 2003, the Advocate published an obituary for Pauline Howard in which the K.C. McDaniels Funeral Home is listed as handling the arrangements. Daniels is listed as Howard's son in the obituary.
If he received no compensation for any of the burials he violated no state mortuary law, Potter noted. A violation of the law is committed only when a person accepts compensation, she said.
In addition to the standard legal penalties for a class B misdemeanor, up to a $2,000 fine and up to 180 days in jail, the funeral services commission could also seek a permanent injunction through the Office of the Attorney General barring that person from ever conducting funeral services again, Potter said.
K.C. McDaniels' facility license expired in 2000 after inspectors from the Texas Funeral Service Commission were twice unable to inspect the facility, finding the home closed on two visits in 1999, one on Aug. 18 and another on Oct. 22. In a May 26, 2000 letter, the state informed Daniels that until such an inspection could be completed the facility's license would not be renewed.
Daniels' personal license was suspended for six months as of July 1, 2001, when he didn't pay a $4,000 administrative penalty, Potter said. State records described the fine as originating from an incident of unethical conduct regarding the custody of a dead human body.
Records show his individual license has not been renewed since Nov. 30, 2001, Potter said.
Daniels was contracted by the niece of a dead woman who died in August of 2000 to bury and embalm the deceased, according to state records. However, when the deceased's daughter decided to use a different funeral home, Daniels refused to release the body until he could contact the niece, according to the records.
The investigation found that since the daughter was clearly the nearest living relative, Daniels should have surrendered the body to the other funeral home.
The daughter, who had accompanied the other funeral home to pick up the body, finally contacted the Victoria Police Department, which helped in securing the release of the corpse, according to the records.
After Daniels failed to answer numerous letters from the banking department in regard to selling pre-paid funeral services without a license, the agency referred the matter to the Attorney General's office for collection, Reese said.
The Office of the Attorney General sent Daniels a letter demanding payment on Aug. 13, said Tom Kelley, an office spokesman.
If Daniels doesn't respond within 10 working days - the deadline is Friday - and the caseworker assigned to the case can't contact Daniels by phone, then the matter could be referred to a department attorney to pursue civil legal action.
In that case, Daniels could be subject to additional fees and civil penalties on top of the $18,000, Kelley said. He could also be subject to attorney's fees.
It would be in Daniels' best interest to respond to the Attorney General's office, Kelley said.
Thomas Doyle is a business reporter with the Victoria Advocate. Contact him at 361-580-6511 or
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http://www.thevictoriaadvocate.com/local/local/story/2160718p-2503696c.html |
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Taphophilia?
taphophilia (taf′ō-fil′ē-ă)
ORIGIN:
From the Greek words taphos, meaning "tomb" or "sepulcher" and philia, meaning "attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something"
DEFINITION: 1. An excessive interest in graves and cemeteries. 2. A love or fondness for funerals, graves, and cemeteries. 3. In psychiatry, a morbid attraction to graves and cemeteries
Quote Repository
“
There was a young man at Nunhead
Who awoke in his coffin of lead
'It was cosy enough,'
He remarked in a huff,
'But I wasn't aware I was dead.'
”Anonymous Victorian limerick
Shirtless and Sculpted
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