A California family discovered in the middle of a funeral that the casket for a loved one had the wrong body

• The Fresno Bee reported on Saturday that a California family is suing a funeral home for placing the wrong body in the casket of their loved one.
• The Lee family learned that the casket they thought contained their beloved grandmother had actually contained the wrong body.

In the middle of a loved one's funeral, a California family found out that the casket contained the wrong body.

The grandchildren of the late Cher Lee of Fresno, California, said the family experienced emotional trauma and is now suing the funeral home, The Fresno Bee reported on Saturday.

In place of Lee, who died on September 23, 2021, was a deceased member of an entirely different family.

"In the middle of the funeral, however, to the extreme shock and surprise of all in attendance, the Lee family opened the casket to discover the wrong body!" the family said in a lawsuit filed on February 2, The Bee reported.

The funeral home "had dressed Cher Lee in the Khang family members' ceremonial funeral clothes and was now in the open casket in place of the departed Khang family member," the lawsuit added.

Because of the mixup, the Lee family now worries that their beloved grandmother will not make it to her final resting place.

"The afterlife and its preparation is of extreme significance for both the living and the departed. Indeed, many Hmong believe that when the body is mishandled, and the funeral songs sung, the deceased relative not only fails to make their journey to the afterlife, but the deceased stays lost between this life and the next and curses the surviving family members," the lawsuit says, The Bee reported.

Fresno Funeral Chapel, which oversaw the services, did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

But on Friday, the funeral home admitted to and took responsibility for the mistake, The Bee reported, saying it didn't do enough to prevent the mixup from happening.

"It was our mistake for putting the wrong body out," Steven Smith, the chapel's funeral director, told the outlet. "We should have double checked."

"I pray it doesn't happen again," he added.