The 80-year-old scion of a Dallas oil and gas production company has sued the owners of Restland Cemetery for allowing the removal of his parents’ remains to another cemetery without his consent.
In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Dallas County, Dallas businessman and animal rescue activist Louis Dorfman claims Restland Funeral Home & Cemetery knowingly signed false consent forms that allowed Dorfman’s niece and nephew, Stacey Dorfman Kivowitz and Samuel Grant Dorfman, to move their grandparents’ remains from Restland to Hillcrest Memorial Park behind his back.
Though the remains of his parents, Sam Y. Dorfman, Sr. and Elizabeth Dorfman Fisher, were moved to Hillcrest in September 2015, Louis Dorfman said he did not find out about it until January 2017, when his son made the discovery after visiting Hillcrest, where Dorfman’s brother is buried.
The suit alleges that the lengthy and elaborate disinterment process took place despite obvious legal barriers and despite the fact that Dorfman was well-known to the operators of Restland as his parents’ next-of-kin.
According to the 15-page lawsuit, a Sept. 9, 2014 email from Restland funeral director Amie Douglas to Kivowitz said Douglas “needed ‘your, Grant’s and your uncle’s [plaintiff’s] full names, addresses and phone numbers in connection with the disinterment and reinterment. However, neither Ms. Douglas nor anyone else from Restland contacted plaintiff to advise him of the request to disinter and reinter his parents or to obtain his consent to such disinterment and reinterment.”
About a month later on Oct. 9, 2014 and again on Dec. 12, 2014, Douglas signed two consent forms for Dorfman’s parents to be moved from their mausoleum at Restland to Hillcrest.
“The consent forms falsely stated that Grant Dorfman and Stacey Kivowitz were the ‘NEXT-OF-KIN’ of the deceased and that there were ‘no other living relatives’ which preceded them in degree of kinship,” alleges the lawsuit, which was filed on Dorfman’s behalf by Dorsey & Whitney attorneys Mike Gruber and Kara Grimes.
John Hale, general counsel of NorthStar Memorial Group, the holding company that owns Restland, expressed disappointment at the prospect of litigation.
“Restland Funeral Home and Cemetery has served this community for decades and takes pride in its professional and thoughtful approach in serving and respecting the privacy of its client families,” he told The Texas Lawbook in an email. “At times, its service finds itself involved in family disputes at difficult times. Restland has cooperated fully in this instance and is disappointed that it must defend its actions which have complied with all laws, professional requirements and Restland’s best practices.”
Through their counsel, The Lawbook also reached out to the siblings, Grant Dorfman and Stacey Kivowitz, for comment, but have not received a specific response.
Tuesday’s lawsuit against Restland evolved from evidence gathered during earlier business litigation between Louis Dorfman and the siblings. In April, the family entered a confidential settlement agreement meant to end an intra-family business dispute. Dorfman accused Kivowitz and Grant Dorfman of failing to compensate him for significant work aimed at increasing the value of the family oil and gas company, Dorfman Production.
The siblings countered that their uncle had already been paid more than $3 million in shareholder distributions of DPC stock and that he still wanted more, despite having used DPC resources to support what they called “his lavish lifestyle,” one court document says.
DPC is owned by Mr. Dorfman and the estate of his brother, Sam (Grant and Kivowitz’s father), who died in 2014. According to the DPC website, brothers Louis and Sam Dorfman formed the company to consolidate several business concerns after the death of their father, an immigrant from the Ukraine.
Louis Dorfman – a lawyer, philanthropist and cancer survivor – told The Texas Lawbook he was “shocked, astonished and depressed” when he found out what had happened to his parents.
“We all have our own spiritual focus and guidelines,” he said. “Mine is that the deceased are entitled to undisturbed and tranquil rest for eternity… in the location they chose. Their bodies were completely stolen and taken to some place they did not wish to be.”
On top of that, Dorfman said whoever transported his parents’ bodies simply “threw them in the back of a pickup truck and hauled them to Hillcrest and did not even place them side by side as my mother had requested in her will.”
Dorfman, who had been “hours in remission” from stage 4 prostate cancer at the time he found out about his parents, said he believes the stress, mental anguish and frustration he underwent after receiving the news caused a relapse in his cancer. He said he plans to travel soon to Germany for a treatment that is only available there.
Dorfman also emphasizes in his lawsuit that there are criminal implications for Restland, since the knowing submission of falsely procured consent forms is considered tampering with government documents, a violation of the Texas Penal Code. He claims that Restland failed, in essence, to report a crime, despite being aware of it.
“They knew of the crime committed that disrupted countless numbers of loved ones and didn’t even contact the police and file a police report,” Dorfman said.
As the owner and operator of a nationally-acclaimed exotic animal sanctuary, Dorfman said it would take “about 20 seconds of due diligence” for Restland to find him online and discover that he’s still the surviving brother of Sam Dorfman and his parents.
“They’ve admitted they have done absolutely no due diligence for something as irreverent and emotional as disinterring two bodies,” Dorfman said.
Asked why he believes his niece and nephew would move his parents’ remains, Dorfman could only speculate. He said his nephew, Samuel Grant Dorfman, is a Yale Law School graduate and a former state district judge in Houston who would not have signed the questionable documents without the influence of Stacey Dorfman Kivowitz, his sister.
“He wouldn’t have done it on his own I don’t think, but she just dominates everyone in the family,” Dorfman said. “I’m the only one in the family she didn’t dominate, and she hates me for it.”
Dallas attorney Dick Sayles represented Dorfman in the other lawsuit, while Ladd Hirsch, Victor Vital, Jill Tananbaum and Chrysta Castañeda represented Grant Dorfman and Kivowitz.