OKLAHOMA CITY – A woman who sued a Greer County community after her minor son was injured when a cemetery headstone fell on his legs has lost her court case.
Tori Kamphaus claimed the Town of Granite was negligent in maintenance of the monument.
The incident occurred on March 20, 2018, while Kamphaus was attending a funeral in the Granite City Cemetery. “Away from the actual location of the funeral, but in close proximity,” the boy was “either touching and/or playing on top of” a headstone when it topped over and crushed both of his legs. The headstone was at the gravesite of a couple who died in 1918 and 1927, court records reflect.
Kamphaus sued for an indeterminate amount in excess of $75,000 for her son’s “pain, suffering, mental anguish, medical expenses, …loss of earning capacity, disfigurement, and loss of quality of and enjoyment of life…” She also claimed she “incurred liability” for her son’s medical expenses.
The City of Granite sells plots in the cemetery to individuals “who then have the right to be buried in their plot(s)” at that graveyard, a court document relates. Owners or proprietors of the plots “erect and maintain/repair all monuments or headstones, per the City of Granite’s historical practice and city ordinance,” Associate District Judge Eric Yarborough wrote.
The City of Granite “has not taken on any duty to inspect the cemetery headstones/monuments for hazards,” the judge continued. While the city “does assume responsibility for routine maintenance” at the cemetery, consisting of mowing (including burial plots), repairs to fencing, care of shrubbery, and maintaining access roads, “it provides no maintenance of headstones or monuments that they do not own.”
Furthermore, the city “operates the cemetery as a benefit to the community… much like a city provides sidewalks and roads for the public’s use.” The City of Granite “had no specific plan for the care of very old monuments on plots where there may no longer exist an owner or family to care for the plot or monument,” Yarborough wrote.
A city employee testified that if an employee noticed a “dangerously leaning monument,” the city council “would likely be contacted for instructions.” However, on the day of the boy’s accident the City of Granite “was not aware” that the headstone was “a danger.”
The city had “constructive notice” that the monument was leaning “to some extent,” the judge wrote. “…[A]ll that anyone had to do was open their eyes and look to see the multitude of leaning/tilting monuments, including the one in question,” he wrote. Nevertheless, the city had not experienced any occurrences of gravestones falling over prior to the incident that led to the lawsuit.
Yarborough ruled in favor of the City of Granite and dismissed Kamphaus’ lawsuit on July 16, 2020.
She appealed and the Oklahoma Court of Civil Appeals reversed the district court’s judgment, holding that the town retained some aspect of ownership of the plot even after it was transferred to the couple who are buried there.
The Oklahoma Supreme Court overturned the appellate court’s ruling.
The City of Granite “was not statutorily required to maintain the headstone,” the Supreme Court ruled. The city ordinance decrees, “It shall be the duty of the proprietor or owners of the lots to keep in repair permanent markers, stones, and memorials in the boundaries of their lots.”
The town “did not owe a duty” to Kamphaus’ son to “maintain the headstone” in question, the justices ruled. To require the City of Granite “to maintain every headstone installed in a cemetery into perpetuity” would be “a tremendous burden,” especially when the headstones and monuments “are not the Town’s property.”
Because the City of Granite did not own the headstone, “we hold the Town did not have a duty to maintain it,” the Supreme Court ruled, affirming Yarborough’s judgment.
Instances of injuries and even death attributed to falling gravestones and monuments are rare.
In 1986 a 4-year-old boy was crushed to death when a 500-pound headstone fell on him at a cemetery in Illinois. Similarly, in 2012 a 4-year-old boy died when a 250-pound tombstone fell on him at a cemetery in Utah.
A 4-year-old boy whose family was visiting the Ector County Cemetery at Odessa, Texas, in 2015 was killed when a nearly 100-year-old headstone fell over and struck him in the head. An 8-year-old boy taking a shortcut through a Pennsylvania cemetery in 2017 suffered a broken leg and a fractured wrist when a tombstone fell on top of him. And in 2021 a mother of five was killed when a 2,000-pound grave monument in a Staten Island, New York, cemetery fell on her.