Ardis v. Fairhaven Funeral Home & Crematory Inc.

The trial court properly denied a motion for class certification in a fraud case arising from a funeral home's failure to disclose fees charged for the inclusion of its logo on obituaries, since the claim did not meet the commonality requirement of OCGA § 9-11-23 a 2.

Thank you for sharing!

Your article was successfully shared with the contacts you provided.

Kimberly Ardis, Donna Kendrick, and Bridgett Bland collectively “the Appellants” filed a complaint against Fairhaven Funeral Home & Crematory, Inc. “Fairhaven”, alleging that Fairhaven failed to disclose that a portion of the fees paid by the Appellants for obituary services covered the cost of having Fairhaven’s contact information and business logo collectively “logo” included at the bottom of each obituary, thereby causing the Appellants and other customers to unknowingly incur additional fees for the obituaries which could have been avoided without inclusion of the logo. The Appellants filed a motion for class certification based on this claim, which motion the trial court denied. This appeal followed, and for the reasons that follow, we affirm. In their lawsuit, the Appellants alleged that Fairhaven provided obituary services to its customers, which included forwarding the obituaries to the Savannah Morning News for pricing and publication. The Appellants contended that Fairhaven failed to disclose to its customers that a portion of the obituary fees was used to cover publication costs associated with inclusion of the Fairhaven logo in each obituary.

In their class certification motion, the Appellants sought to serve as representatives of the class of “all customers of Fairhaven. . . in the preceding four 4 years who have paid for obituary services and have suffered damages due to Fairhaven’s concealment of the fact that a portion of the fee paid for such services went towards an advertisement for Fairhaven in the obituary notices found in the Savannah Morning News.” The Appellants filed a brief in support of their motion, explaining that the advertisement at issue consisted of Fairhaven’s contact information followed by a diamond-shaped branding logo. The Appellants contended that the Savannah Morning News charged between $12.00 and $64.50 for inclusion of the logo depending on whether the customer’s obituary was fewer than 20 lines or more than 20 lines respectively.

Ardis v. Fairhaven Funeral Home & Crematory Inc.

The trial court properly denied a motion for class certification in a fraud case arising from a funeral home's failure to disclose fees charged for the inclusion of its logo on obituaries, since the claim did not meet the commonality requirement of OCGA § 9-11-23 a 2.

Share with Email

Thank you for sharing!

Trending Stories

More From ALM

Subscribe to Daily Report