## Facts

- In 1977, Kenneth Binns’s mother purchased adjacent burial plots from Westminster Memorial Park for family use, including a plot intended for Binns.
- Binns’s father had already been buried in an earlier-purchased plot; Binns’s mother was buried in one of the adjacent family plots in 1986.
- In 2005, Binns discovered that a stranger, Maria Vallejo, had been interred in the plot reserved for him next to his mother’s grave.
- Binns reported the error to Westminster; the cemetery disinterred Vallejo and reinterred her elsewhere.
- Binns alleged the mistaken burial and the disinterment caused serious emotional distress with physical symptoms (including nightmares, cold sweats, appetite loss) and distress tied to burial and religious concerns.

## Issues

1. Whether a cemetery operator owes a duty of care to an identifiable holder of a reserved family burial plot (adjacent to already-interred relatives) to avoid interring a stranger in that plot, permitting recovery of emotional distress damages in negligence.
2. Whether substantial evidence supported a finding of serious emotional distress, and whether Binns’s reaction was so unreasonable that recovery should be barred as a matter of law.
3. Whether a negligence-based emotional distress action constitutes an “action on the contract” triggering a burial-plot agreement’s attorney-fee clause.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment awarding Binns emotional distress damages on a negligence theory.
- The court held Westminster owed Binns a duty to avoid mistakenly burying a stranger in his reserved family plot, and serious emotional distress from such an error was foreseeable.
- The court found substantial evidence supported the trial court’s finding that Binns suffered serious emotional distress, and his reaction was not legally abnormal or unreasonable.
- The Court of Appeal affirmed the order denying Binns contractual attorney’s fees because the suit did not seek to enforce or interpret contractual terms.

## Legal Principles

- A cemetery may owe a duty of care to a foreseeable, identifiable plot holder where the cemetery sold adjacent plots for family use and at least one family member is already interred in the adjoining plots.
- Negligence-based emotional distress damages are recoverable when duty, breach, causation, and serious emotional distress are shown, and the distress is a foreseeable result of the breach.
- Foreseeability of emotional harm may be heightened in burial and interment contexts because errors can predictably trigger intense emotional, religious, or ethical concerns.
- Limiting duty to plot holders with family members already interred can confine liability to a defined class of plaintiffs and avoid excessive burden.
- An attorney-fee clause generally applies only to actions “on the contract” (enforcement or interpretation of contractual rights or duties) and does not extend to tort claims merely related to a contractual relationship.

## Conclusion

The court upheld emotional distress damages for a cemetery’s mistaken interment of a stranger in a reserved family plot, finding a limited but enforceable duty and foreseeable serious distress, while denying contractual attorney’s fees because the claim sounded in tort rather than enforcement of the burial-plot agreement.


Binns v. Westminster Mem’l Park, 171 Cal. App. 4th 700 (Ct. App. 2009)