Kim v. Forest Lawn
On July 12, 2021, Plaintiff filed a claim for breach of contract and negligence against Defendant Forest Lawn in connection with the conveyance of an interment space allegedly purchased for her mother in 2004. In 2004, Plaintiff’s father passed away and a burial plot was purchased at Forest Lawn Cemetery for his interment, with an adjacent plot purchased for Plaintiff’s mother for her future interment needs. The following day, Plaintiff executed a new contract upgrading the previously purchased plot for her father to a new location within Defendant’s facility, but failed to complete a similar contract for the second burial plot purchased for her mother. Plaintiff’s father was interred in 2004. Three years later, the plot adjacent to Plaintiff’s father was purchased by a third party, whose relative was interred in 2007. Fourteen years later, Plaintiff filed suit alleging Forest Lawn negligently breached a contract when conveying the burial plot to this third party. The Complaint alleged the breach was identified in 2020 when Plaintiff first noticed a third party was interred in the plot adjacent to her father. Plaintiff testified at deposition, however, that she had visited her father’s grave, at minimum, four times a year every year since the time of his death in 2004. As such, the Court found that any alleged breach occurred in 2007 and Plaintiff knew, or reasonably should have known, that such a breach occurred. As such, Plaintiff failed to raise a triable issue of fact as to the statute of limitations, whether based upon the 4-year written contract statute of limitation or the shorter negligence statute of limitations and Summary Judgment was granted.