Judgment issues in civil case against owners of Penrose funeral home
PENROSE, Colo. (KRDO) - A massive judgment was made in a class action lawsuit against the owners of the Penrose funeral home where nearly 200 decomposing bodies were found improperly stored in Oct. 2023.
A class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of the family members involved in the case shortly after the bodies were discovered.
The decision was made last week and awarded nearly $1 billion in a default judgment.
The total default judgment was $956,825,044.14, made against Hallfordhomes LLC, Return to Nature Funeral Home, Carie Hallford, and Jon Hallford. There are 125 families in this lawsuit, each of them should receive over $7 million.
However, family members tell KRDO13 Investigates they don't expect to see any of it.
"I've known from the beginning that we're probably not going to get any monetary value from them directly, but this makes a huge impact in one of my biggest worries from the beginning of this case," Samantha Naranjo said.
That worry being the Hallfords profiting in any way off of the tragic loss of their family members.
Families were notified via email by Leventhal Lewis, the firm that filed the lawsuit, who says that this is the largest judgment in Colorado’s history.
