The Houston [1st] Court of Appeals has revered a trial court order denying a cemetery’s motion to compel arbitration in a dispute with a family over an interment in the wrong burial plot.
SCI Texas Funeral Services, LLC d/b/a Memorial Park and DM Affinity, Inc. (No. 01-25-00251-CV; April 30, 2026) arose from a dispute between a cemetery and a family who alleged that the cemetery buried their loved one in a plot that had previously been sold to someone else. The parties executed an interment agreement in 2022 that contained an arbitration clause. When the dispute arose two years later, the parties executed a reinterment contract that didn’t have an arbitration clause. The second agreement did have an entire agreement clause and a schedule on which the parties wrote “2nd Right of Interment.” Subsequently, the family filed suit, asserting negligence for allowing the deceased to be buried in a previously sold plot and failing to train employees in identifying such plots. They also alleged DTPA violations. SCI moved to compel arbitration. The trial court denied the motion. SCI appealed.
In an opinion by Justice Gunn, the court of appeals reversed and remanded. First, the 2022 agreement “plainly calls for arbitration, and by adopting the AAA rules it would seem to delegate the issue of arbitrability to the arbitrator just as occurred in TotalEnergies.” But did the 2024 reinterment agreement override that because of the entire agreement clause? The question boiled down to whether the initial interment “related to” the reinterment, such as to replace the initial agreement. SCI argued that the agreements were separate and distinct.
The court agreed with SCI. The 2024 agreement did not state that it superseded the 2022 agreement, though it easily could have done so. In fact, the 2024 agreement specifically stated that it replaced any other agreements “related to” the goods and services listed in Schedule A, the only one of which was listed as “2nd Right of Interment.” The two agreements can thus co-exist and be harmonized, as SCI argued. The family argued that a family member’s affidavit that the family objected to arbitration and sought to change the first agreement was undisputed and should prevail. But, as the court pointed out, “when it comes to contract interpretation” the affidavit “is not evidence at all” because the parol evidence rule excludes it. Here the contract language was unambiguous and required the parties to arbitrate under AAA rules, which delegate arbitrability to the arbitrator. The trial court thus errned in denying SCI’s motion to compel.
