Mom passed away three weeks ago after going into the final stage of her Dementia where she forgot how to swallow. The whole last eight years of this saga was awful, but her death wasn't the end of my stress.
Though she had been progressing through the stages at what I thought was a slow rate, her actual death came rather sudden and I hadn't specially planned what to do after. I had always known that I would cremate my parents when their times came, and there was a funeral home up the street from the nursing home, so I called and made arrangements.
Dad is 88 and while he doesn't have Alzheimer's, he does have frontal lobe vascular dementia and I've been his guardian for almost 4 years. He can't make rational decisions for the most part, and nearly killed himself through self neglect. Anyway, I wanted to have mom cremated before I told him about her death (they hadn't lived together for 6 years once mom was put in memory care at the first facility), as I thought he might want to make outlandish or unnecessary requests, or to just make things difficult as he's done for the last decade.
The funeral home insisted that as next of kin, dad had to be the one to sign the cremation authorization form first. I told them as guardian, there is no legal sheet of paper that I can't sign for him. They 'referred' the matter to their legal department. They maintained that he had to sign.
Yeah, I was stressed out by this. I was on the phone with one of the managers who suggested, among other things, that I could transfer mom to another funeral home who would be 'less strict' about such things, or get a court order, but I had only a few days before state law said mom would have to be embalmed, and I didn't want that. It was bad enough seeing mom with her mouth wide open after she died, I didn't want anyone filling her will embalming fluid for no reason.
In the end, I was able to get ahold of dad's doctor who faxed the funeral home with a note that dad wasn't competent. I was happy and infuriated at the same time. So they are telling me that guardianship doesn't cover me signing for dad, but a doctor's note does? Seems completely absurd.
Never mind that person after person was asking me about 'power of attorney' seemingly totally unaware of the pecking order of that verses guardianship.
While this is over now, and it's turned out OK, I'm still furious at the funeral home, and I was wondering if the law is on my side or not. I'm in Minnesota, and I thought I would try here before getting a lawyer involved. Part of me feels like they were dragging their feet on purpose in order to get to the week mark, embalm my mother, and send me another bill, but I'm open to being wrong about that. If the law is on their side, then it's over. If not, then I might consider a civil suit for the extra unnecessary anguish I had to endure.
I don't have a particular figure in mind. Whatever makes them not do this to someone else.
Your guardianship form may or should have been clear that your father was incompetent and your were awarded absolute authority over any decisions that he would normally make if he were competent.
I can understand your narrowing your eyes at the thought of the juicy embalming fee; but I doubt if it was really the motivating factor. From their point of view, it was simple - get your father to sign. What they failed to understand, and this again is a training issue, is why it simply wasn't that simple.
The anguish: tell them how they can put that right. A written apology, with some appropriate ex gratia gesture, perhaps; unless you have a figure in mind?
But it's the training that's the main issue. What you most want is to make sure they don't do this to another grieving family, surely. Perhaps an elder care lawyer would run a workshop for them.