Two Wake Forest parents lost their son in March 2021 and buried his remains at Pine Forest Memorial Gardens, then bought two additional plots beside him so they could be buried at his feet. Four years later, on a gravesite visit, they found what appeared to be "another body" in the plot they owned next to their son, according to the lawsuit. A cemetery employee then "placed a rod in the ground and confirmed again that someone was buried there," the complaint states, in wording reported by WRAL.
That discovery is now a proposed federal class action. The case, Foster v. Pine Forest Memorial Gardens LLC, No. 5:26-cv-00620, sits before Judge Louise W. Flanagan in the Eastern District of North Carolina. WRAL identifies the cemetery company's corporate ownership as Everstory Partners, a Florida-based operator with more than 400 cemeteries across 23 states and Puerto Rico.
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By the Numbers
The pattern WRAL counts
WRAL counts the Pine Forest suit as at least the second such mix-up at Montlawn and the third involving an Everstory property.
In 2014, Kizzie Sewell paid $3,150 for a Montlawn gravesite after her husband, Winfred Barnes, died of a heart attack at work on Christmas Eve. He was buried Dec. 31, 2014. The plot had been double-sold; its original deed owners petitioned a court to move him, and he was exhumed in 2019 under a court order.
The second episode drew WRAL's original investigation. Beth Greene and her daughters had held interment rights at Montlawn since 2013, beside husband and father. On a 2024 visit they found a stranger's remains in one purchased plot. Montlawn "blamed it on faulty maps," per the family's account to WRAL. A record-keeping error also put a second plot's number in the wrong location; the rights belonged to another family. The Greenes filed a 170-page consumer complaint with the state Attorney General's office and say they have heard nothing from Montlawn or its ownership since 2025.
What the lawsuit alleges
Per WRAL's reading of the filings, the suit proceeds on five counts: intentional infliction of emotional distress, meaning severe distress caused by extreme conduct; breach of contract; negligence; unfair and deceptive trade practices, North Carolina's consumer protection statute; and common law fraud.
Defendants filed a notice of removal, the formal move from Wake County into federal court, on Aug. 28, 2026, three days before WRAL's first story on the Greene mix-up. An extension of time to answer was granted Aug. 31, and the case was selected for mediation that day.
Mediation here is routine scheduling, and the case keeps moving while it happens. The court's local rules automatically place civil suits of this type, contract and tort cases, into a mediated settlement conference: a meeting where a neutral third party tries to negotiate a settlement while the lawsuit proceeds. If the talks fail, the suit moves on toward trial.
In removing the case, defendants cited plaintiffs' counsel's statement that the class could include families of hundreds of decedents, per WRAL. That figure is an allegation; the court has certified no class, meaning no judge has yet decided whether the suit can proceed on behalf of all affected families or only the parents who filed it.
Sauder Schelkopf and Bochetto & Lentz represent the plaintiffs; neither firm is licensed in North Carolina. Poulin Willey Anastopoulo is local counsel.
Everstory told WRAL it strives to ensure families "have the comfort, compassion, and dignity they deserve" and does "not publicly discuss any specific situations." A spokesperson told WRAL it is "not commenting further on the pending litigation."
Regulators and the complaint files
Oversight in practice has run on consumer complaints. NC Cemetery Commission Executive Director Glenn Cutler confirmed 30 complaints against Montlawn since 2020 and no formal action. Commission President William Gaffney called the Greene situation the product of "mistakes and errors," deemed it "rare," and said no standard remedy exists. The commission withheld complaint copies, citing state code.
Records WRAL obtained from Attorney General Jeff Jackson's office show eight consumer complaints against Montlawn since 2020, citing billing complications and marker problems, from incorrect grave placements to missing date-of-death records. None of the other seven involved the dilemma the Greene family reported.
What it means
Both the Greene discovery and the Wake Forest parents' discovery began with a gravesite visit, years after the plots were sold. The failures WRAL documented, a double-sold grave and faulty maps, sat in the records behind every sale.
Outside the company, oversight amounts to two complaint files: 30 at the commission with no formal action, eight at the attorney general's office, one of them the Greenes' own. The lawsuit is the next test. It is live and in its opening phase: the defendants have not yet filed an answer, no class has been certified, and a court-ordered settlement conference is pending. What the mediation produces, a deal, a partial deal, or no deal, will shape whether hundreds of families ever get a day in court or only the two who filed.
What families can do
For plot holders, the options are narrow. Families can ask the operator to verify their deed, plot number, and map location against the cemetery's records; the Greene case shows both can be wrong at once. Complaints can go to the NC Cemetery Commission or the Attorney General's consumer office, which holds the Greenes' 170-page filing.
What This Means for You
Update, Sept. 10: Stay motion and three special appearances
The docket has moved since this story published.
On Sept. 4, a stay motion was docketed as submitted. The entry does not say who filed it or whether Judge Flanagan has ruled on it; the document itself sits behind PACER's paywall. A stay, if granted, halts the case schedule while it lasts. The case had been selected for mediation on Aug. 31.
On Sept. 9, three separate notices of special appearance were filed. A special appearance allows a lawyer to participate for a party without conceding that the court has jurisdiction over that party. The docket entries do not name the clients the lawyers represent.
The case remains live and pre-answer. No class has been certified.
Update, Sept. 11: Judge stays all deadlines except the remand fight
Judge Louise W. Flanagan granted the parties' joint motion on Sept. 11 and paused every deadline in the case except one track: the fight over which court hears it. The parents have until Sept. 28 to file their motion to send the case back to Wake County Superior Court, where they filed it in June. The defendants have until Oct. 28 to respond, and a reply is due Nov. 11. Everything else waits until the judge decides that question, including the defendants' answer and any motion to force the family into arbitration. The order resolves the stay motion noted in the previous update; it was a joint request, meaning both sides agreed to put the courtroom question first.
Obitley has also now read the full Wake County complaint, filed June 25, 2026, which the removal notice attached as an exhibit. It names the parents as Carrie and David Foster, whose son John Ross Foster died on March 31, 2021. The family bought four plots in April 2021, including two in the Serenity section so both parents could one day be buried at their son's feet, and paid in full by April 2022, the complaint states. On a July 25, 2025 visit, they found what appeared to be another burial in one of those plots.
The complaint describes a ground-penetrating radar scan the family commissioned from a private firm, which found soil changes consistent with an excavation, and a follow-up probe in which a cemetery employee confirmed a body was buried there, matching what WRAL reported.
The complaint's central regulatory claim: after the family complained to the NC Cemetery Commission, the cemetery's operator told the Commission in a Sept. 24, 2025 response that the Serenity spaces the Fosters bought "do not exist," blaming an inaccurate hand-drawn map from a previous owner. The complaint quotes that response at length and alleges it is false, citing interment rights certificates the company issued to the family on Aug. 14, 2025, five weeks before that response. These are allegations in a civil complaint, not court findings; the defendants have not yet answered them.
Obitley has requested the Commission's complaint file, including the operator's Sept. 24, 2025 response and any attachments, under the North Carolina public records law.
*Sources: WRAL, "Family sues NC cemetery operator alleging wrong person buried next to son," Sept. 1, 2026; WRAL investigation of the Greene family's Montlawn discovery, Aug. 31, 2026; WRAL follow-up on NC Cemetery Commission records and the 2019 Sewell exhumation, Sept. 2, 2026; CourtListener docket, Foster v. Pine Forest Memorial Gardens LLC, E.D.N.C. No. 5:26-cv-00620; Local ADR Rules, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, Rule 101.1a CourtListener docket Entries 14-17 (stay motion and notices of special appearance, Sept. 4 and 9, 2026), reviewed Sept. 10, 2026. Order granting joint motion to set briefing schedule on motion to remand and stay other deadlines, Doc. 18, Sept. 11, 2026; Wake County Superior Court class action complaint, No. 26CV024257-910, filed June 25, 2026 (attached as Doc. 1-4).
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