A family is suing Celebrity Cruises due to what they consider to be unacceptable treatment of their relative’s body after he died on the ship.

The family of Robert Lewis Jones, 78, has sued Celebrity Cruises for $1 million after Jones passed away on their ship, Celebrity Equinox, in August, and the management allegedly stored it in a drinks cooler instead of the ship’s morgue, causing it to decompose badly and ruining their plans for an open-casket funeral.

Jones’ wife claims she was not informed of her husband’s body being placed in a drinks cooler until the ship docked in Fort Lauderdale six days after his passing. The lawsuit states that the body should have been placed in the ship’s morgue, where it would receive proper care, instead of a cooler for storing beverages. The family alleges that the crew initially placed Jones’ body in the morgue but then moved it to the cooler.

When the ship docked in Puerto Rico after Jones’ death, the management gave his widow two options – take the body off the ship in Puerto Rico or keep it in the ship’s morgue until its return to Fort Lauderdale. According to the lawsuit, the crew allegedly urged the dead man’s widow to keep the body on board instead of taking it off, which she agreed to do. However, when the ship arrived in Fort Lauderdale, a Sheriff’s deputy found the body missing from the morgue.

A search for the missing body ensued, and funeral service workers later found the body inside a blood-splattered bag on a pallet inside the cooler.

The lawsuit claims that the body was badly decomposed due to the unsuitable temperature in the cooler, which prevented proper preservation. As a result, the family could not follow their long-standing tradition of an open-casket funeral. 

The family is seeking $1 million in damages from Celebrity Cruises for the negligent handling of Jones’ body.