The True Story of The Burial’s Settlement: $175M of a $500M Verdict

The true story behind the settlement in The Burial is this: on January 29, 1996, the Loewen Group paid Mississippi funeral home owner Jerry O’Keefe $175 million to resolve a case in which a Hinds County jury had just awarded him $500 million. Loewen settled not because it agreed with the verdict but because it could not post the bond required to appeal it.¹

The $500 Million Verdict That Forced the Settlement

The case, O’Keefe v. The Loewen Group, went to trial on September 13, 1995, in the Circuit Court of Hinds County, Mississippi, before Judge James Graves. Eight weeks, more than 40 witnesses, and over 350 exhibits later, the jury of eight women and four men, nine of them Black, returned a verdict on November 1 and 2, 1995.²³

They found for O’Keefe on all counts: breach of contract, breach of a 1991 preliminary settlement, and antitrust violations. Compensatory damages came in at $100 million. Punitive damages added $400 million. The $500 million total was the largest verdict in Mississippi history at the time. Internal accounts later revealed the jury had first voted on a $1 billion figure, which failed by a single vote.²

The underlying dispute traced back to 1990, when the Canadian-based Loewen Group bought Wright & Ferguson Funeral Home in Jackson along with the Riemann funeral homes and then stopped honoring an exclusive contract, dating to 1974, that let O’Keefe’s Gulf National Life Insurance Company sell burial insurance through Wright & Ferguson. O’Keefe sued in 1991 and amended his complaint by 1992 to add fraud and antitrust claims.⁴⁵

His attorney, Willie Gary of Stuart, Florida, framed the trial around a Loewen Group deal with the National Baptist Convention. Under that agreement, the NBC’s president would train pastors to sell Loewen funeral plots and caskets to their congregants for a $200,000 donation. Loewen executives testified they expected the arrangement to generate more than $1 billion in revenue. The gap between what the company stood to earn and what it offered the Black churches became a pivotal moment for the jury.⁶

Why Loewen Settled Instead of Appealing

Loewen announced immediately after the verdict that it would appeal.⁷ Mississippi law stood in the way. To stay enforcement of the judgment during the appeal, the company had to post a supersedeas bond equal to 125 percent of the verdict. That came to $625 million.

Loewen asked the trial court to cut the bond to $125 million. The court refused. On January 24, 1996, the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed that denial and ordered the full bond posted within seven days.³

The company could not raise $625 million. Execution against its Mississippi assets was scheduled for the day after the bond deadline. On January 29, 1996, Loewen settled with O’Keefe for $175 million. The company later characterized the deal as having been made “under extreme duress.”¹

How the $175 Million Was Structured

The settlement was not a lump-sum check. It broke into three parts:⁴

$50 million in cash
1.5 million shares of Loewen Group common stock, which O’Keefe had to hold for at least twelve months
A promissory note paying $4 million per year for twenty years

The share holding period tied a portion of O’Keefe’s recovery to the future performance of the company that had just paid him.

Why O’Keefe Accepted a Third of the Verdict

Settling for $175 million meant walking away from roughly two-thirds of what the jury had awarded. The family’s decision was deliberate. Jeffrey O’Keefe Sr., Jerry’s son, later explained the reasoning: “Had the company paid the full verdict they would have likely never survived.” Jerry O’Keefe wanted Loewen to remain a going concern rather than collapse the day after the check cleared.⁸

Jerry O’Keefe used his share to pay legal fees, distribute funds to the nine plaintiffs, cover taxes, and establish a nonprofit family foundation that still issues grants along the Gulf Coast. He continued working in the family funeral business until his death on August 23, 2016, at age 93.⁸⁹ Bradford-O’Keefe Funeral Homes, run by the fifth and sixth generations of the family, still operates seven funeral homes, three cemeteries, and Mississippi’s first crematorium.

The Settlement Didn’t Save Loewen

O’Keefe’s calculation about preserving the company turned out to be optimistic. The verdict damaged Loewen’s credit rating, made borrowing more expensive, and fueled additional antitrust litigation.² In May 1996, the Federal Trade Commission charged that Loewen’s acquisitions had substantially reduced competition in local markets, and the company agreed to divest funeral homes in Texas and Virginia to settle.¹⁰

Later in 1996, rival Service Corporation International launched a hostile $2.8 billion takeover bid. Loewen fought it off by loading up on debt. By 1998, the company reported a $600 million annual loss and paid a $500,000 fine for antitrust violations in Indiana. Its stock, once above $40, fell to about $1. Loewen filed for Chapter 11 in mid-1999 and emerged in January 2002 as the Alderwoods Group. Service Corporation International then acquired Alderwoods in 2006.²

Loewen and Ray Loewen personally filed a claim against the United States in October 1998 under NAFTA Chapter 11, seeking more than $725 million on the theory that the Mississippi proceedings had denied them justice and discriminated against a Canadian company. The ICSID tribunal dismissed the claims in their entirety on June 26, 2003.¹¹

What the Film Changed About the Case

The Burial, directed by Maggie Betts and released on Amazon Prime Video after premiering at the Toronto Film Festival on September 11, 2023, keeps the central facts intact: the verdict amount, the settlement, Loewen’s bankruptcy, and the O’Keefe family’s survival.¹² Several elements around the case were invented or reshaped for the screen.

The lead defense attorney played by Jurnee Smollett, Mame Downes, is entirely fictional. Loewen’s real lead trial counsel was Richard Sinkfield, and the defense team was all male. Reggie Douglas, played by Dorian Crossmond Missick, is a fictionalized version of Gary’s real law partner Robert Parenti.¹³

The film simplifies the underlying legal dispute into a verbal agreement between O’Keefe and Loewen. The actual case involved a chain of transactions with third-party funeral home owner Robert Riemann and the breach of an existing written insurance sales contract.¹⁴ The courtroom victim testimonials were dramatized, though they reflected real evidence about Loewen’s practices, including the National Baptist Convention deal. And the climactic scene in which the O’Keefe family rejects a settlement offer in a boardroom was invented for the film.¹³

One uncomfortable moment the film preserved accurately: attorney Mike Allred’s admission during the proceedings that he harbored racial prejudice against Black people. That confession really happened.¹³

1
ICSID. Loewen v. United States, ICSID Award
2
The Burial. The Case of The Burial
3
Journal of Legal Studies in Business. The Loewen Group v. United States
4
The Burial. Chronology of The Burial
5
USM Special Collections. O’Keefe v. Loewen
6
Sojourners. The Burial: Churches Both Welcome and Exploit
7
The New York Times. Loewen Group to Fight Funeral Home Ruling
8
Kates-Boylston Publications. The Story and the Family Behind The Burial
9
The New York Times. Jeremiah O’Keefe, Ace in His First World War II Battle, Dies at 93
10
Federal Trade Commission. Major Operator of Funeral Homes Agrees to Sell Funeral Homes in Three Markets
11
U.S. Department of State. Loewen Group v. United States
12
Variety. The Burial Review
13
Time. The Burial True Story
14
Decider. The Burial True Story: How Accurate Is the Willie E. Gary Movie