The body (still) in the landfill
Back to my old hometown today. The family of Erwin Jordan, the man whose remains were taken by mistake to a landfill in the Holland-Zeeland area and buried with the trash has finally settled their civil lawsuit against the parties responsible. No details, of course, but the family is said to be pleased with the damages they received.
This has spawned a host of damning comments in the Holland Sentinel from the folks who believe any time a blue collar family receives damages from a corporation it must somehow be undeserved. If you're poor, I guess you're just supposed to take whatever the big boys hand out and not complain.
Jordan's body was kept in a cold garage at the Notier-Verlee-Langeland Funeral Home on 16th Street in Holland pending a decision by the family whether to bury or cremate him. Priority Arrowaste, which appears to have employed mainly morons, thought the body (in a cardboard box) was trash and tossed it in the truck. It ended up in Waste Management, Inc.'s Auburn Hills landfill in Zeeland Twp.
The Jordan family, being from the other side of the economic tracks, then got the bum's rush when they complained and demanded their father's body be dug out of the landfill for a proper burial. The landfill conducted a desultory search but failed to find Jordan's body. Amazingly, the state of Michigan did not require them to keep searching. While this may sound like one of those needle-in-a-haystack situations, the police out East have a good record of finding crime victim bodies in landfills. It costs money--there's the rub--but it can be done.
To continue this awful story, Ottawa County Circuit Judge Jon Van Allsburg, the sort of judge beloved by rightwing conservatives, ruled that the Jordan family couldn't sue for emotional distress because they didn't personally witness their father's body being dumped in the landfill. Van Allsburg is the sort of judge who can always find a loophole to prevent well-lawyered corporations from being held to to account for their misdeeds.
I'm glad the responsible parties finally settled this case, and I would love to know the cost to their bottom line of this foolish and reprehensible episode. Jordan's body remains in the Auburn Hills landfill, sharing space with tin cans and soda bottles and who knows what else. He deserved far better than he got.