Colorado animal crematorium dumped bodies in landfills, lawsuit says

Two veterinary clinics in northern Colorado are accusing a pet cemetery and crematory of fraud, alleging in a new lawsuit that employees dumped pets' bodies in landfills and mass graves while billing the clinics for cremation.

Precious Memories Pet Cemetery & Crematory in Fort Collins failed to properly provide the advertised services by performing the wrong cremation, improperly disposing of the ashes of the animals and improperly providing other services, including providing clay casts of the wrong pets' paw prints, according to a lawsuit filed Friday in Larimer County District Court.

The clinics - Edwards Veterinary Care in Greeley and Western Skies End-of-Life Veterinary Care, which serves parts of Colorado and Wyoming - each discovered the unfair practices in 2022 and have since canceled multi-year contracts with the crematory, the lawsuit says.

"Defendants intentionally, in bad faith and knowingly charged plaintiffs separately for services that were not rendered," Alexa McKay, an attorney with Environmental and Animal Defense who represents the two clinics, wrote in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit notes that the International Association of Pet Cemeteries and Crematories and the North American Cremation Association's Standards of Pet Cremation Practice define private cremation as the cremation of only one pet at a time. A private cremation, on the other hand, is defined as the cremation of multiple animals at one time with a certain distance between them so that the remains are separated.

Both forms of cremation involve returning the remains to the client.

On its website, Precious Memories tells potential clients: "If you choose cremation, your pet will be treated with care, compassion and respect."

The clinics allege in their lawsuit that Precious Memories employees not only performed individual cremations when the clinics requested and paid for private services, but also disposed of the animals' bodies and ashes in mass graves and landfills when clients requested group cremations. In a group or shared cremation, several pets are cremated at once, but the individual remains are not returned to clients.

In addition, the lawsuit notes that the corpses and ashes of pets were taken to a landfill rather than scattered on site as advertised and required.

In total, the lawsuit includes claims for breach of contract, fraudulent misrepresentation, and violation of the Colorado Consumer Protection Act.

Neither McKay nor representatives for Precious Memories could be reached for comment Tuesday.