A Montreal man is suing a funeral home because he claims they cremated his late mother without his permission.
After Stephane Thalès’ 78-year-old mother died of cancer, he consulted her will. She had named him executor and made it clear she wanted to be buried.
Without his consent, however, she ended up cremated, he says.
“I took care of my mother the last 15 months of her life, saw her going down. She trusted me to handle her things,” he said, his voice shaking with emotion. “It’s the worst catastrophic potential event.”
Edith Jean-Philippe died in November 2015, and Thalès got in touch with the Maison Darche funeral home in Longueil.
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He says he told them he wanted to bury her the following May, around her birthday and Mother’s Day.
“It was winter, and I didn’t want to bury her in the snow. She comes from a hot country; she wouldn’t have liked that,” he said.
In the following months, he ran into some financial and administrative troubles.
“Being like an end-of-life caregiver, temporarily, my income had decreased,” he said.
He says his mother’s bank account was frozen and he couldn’t get access for several months.
In June 2016, he says his interactions with Maison Darche took a negative turn. He claims the funeral home demanded he sign a document agreeing to the cremation, calling it a cheaper option. He refused.
“He told me, ‘We’re going to do it anyway and if you’re not happy, just sue us,”‘ Thalès said.
Thales says he was on the verge of getting access to the money needed for a burial when he found out the funeral home had cremated his mother.
He claims it went behind his back and received authorization from other “estranged” family members.
Thalès filed a lawsuit against Maison Darche, seeking more than $200,000 in damages. It’s now close to going to trial.
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