Home Industries Health Services Report: Family suing Rhode Island Hospital, funeral home for burial of wrong...

Report: Family suing Rhode Island Hospital, funeral home for burial of wrong body

By

PBN Staff

-

02/20/2026

Rhode-Island-Hospital — THE FAMILY of a woman who died in a fire on Christmas day is suing Rhode Island Hospital for releasing the wrong body to a local funeral home, according to a report by WPRI-TV CBS 12. / COURTESY BROWN UNIVERSITY HEALTH

PROVIDENCE – The family of a woman who died in a fire on Christmas Day is suing Rhode Island Hospital and a funeral home for releasing someone else’s body for burial, according to WPRI-TV CBS 12. in the lawsuit, filed on Feb. 18 in District Court, the family of the deceased woman accuses both the hospital

Already a Subscriber? Log in

To Continue Reading This Article

Become a Providence Business News subscriber and get immediate access to all of our premier content and much more.

Learn More and Become a Subscriber

Critical RI business news and analysis updated daily.
1 year of print (26 issues).
Unlimited access to all subscriber only content on our website, on any device.
Free email alerts.
Annual Book of Lists Print Edition.
All special issues produced during subscription term.

Click Here to purchase a paywall bypass link for this article

PBN Branded Content

Safeguarding the Procurement Process: Oversight, Controls, and Internal Audit’s Impact

Vendor management and procurement integrity are among the most critical and vulnerable functions within the…

Learn More

No posts to display

LEAVE A REPLY Cancel reply

PROVIDENCE – The family of a woman who died in a fire on Christmas Day is suing Rhode Island Hospital and a funeral home for releasing someone else's body for burial, according to WPRI-TV CBS 12. in the lawsuit, filed on Feb. 18 in District Court, the family of the deceased woman accuses both the hospital and Bell Funeral Home of negligence, including intentional infliction of emotional distress. Emilia Severino, 75, was one of two victims in the fire that broke out on Christmas Day on Princeton Street. She died Dec. 30 after five days in intensive care. Paul Sullivan, the attorney representing the family, told WPRI the family held a graveside, closed casket burial, unaware that Severino was not the person inside the casket. “Incredibly, when Bell Funeral Home came to pick up her body, Rhode Island Hospital gave them the wrong remains,” Sullivan wrote. “Bell Funeral Home, for its part, never verified that it had the correct body, and, it appears, never even opened the body bag the remains were in.” “Rhode Island Hospital only learned this themselves when a different funeral home came to pick up that now-buried body, and Rhode Island Hospital needed that buried body back,” he said. Sullivan said the body was exhumed and returned to Rhode Island Hospital. Severino's family went to the hospital and visually identified her body, which still had medical equipment attached, Sullivan told WPRI. “Bell Funeral Home then drove that body, in that same condition, back to the gravesite, dropped plaintiffs’ mother’s body bag into the casket, and unceremoniously lowered and buried the casket,” Sullivan told WPRI. “And then they were re-traumatized all over again, when the remains were exhumed and then the proper remains quickly reburied.” Christine Cardoza, director and owner of Bell Funeral Home, told WPRI “this should have never happened.” She added that the hospital’s morgue staff initially could not find Severino’s remains when the funeral staff arrived to pick them up. “I’ve been a licensed funeral director since 1999, and no institution has ever given us the wrong body,” Cardoza said. The remains the hospital provided appeared to match the description of Severino, Cardoza said, but they were still “unrecognizable” due to their condition. The remains were kept in a body bag with a set of sheets inside the casket, and that clothes the family provided were placed on top of her. The family initially asked to see the body on the day of the funeral, but the hearse was already on the way to the cemetery before that could happen, Cardoza said. She told the family she could open the casket at the graveside. Once there, Cardoza slightly opened the casket to fix a piece of string material hanging out, and said the family then realized the remains were kept inside a body bag, so they didn’t ask to view her further. It wasn’t until one day after the services that the hospital contacted the funeral home to explain what happened.