Miami native and recent Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Andre "The Hawk" Dawson is being sued by a local nonprofit that claims the slugger's funeral home business dropped the ball on a deal to bury the dead.
The Guardianship Program of Dade County filed suit against Dawson and his brother, Vincent Brown, co-owners of Grace Memorial Funeral Home in North Miami-Dade, claiming they didn't follow through on an agreement to provide memorial services and burials for the poor and disabled adults they assist, according to the Miami Herald.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday, is seeking over $15,000 in damages. It claims Dawson and Brown didn't follow through on providing funerals and burials for as many as seven people whose services had been prepaid by the Guardianship Program.
In one case, a man's corpse sat around for three weeks as Dawson and Brown dragged their feet.
"These agreements were fully funded and made for the benefit of some of the most vulnerable citizens in our community. The refusal to honor them is unconscionable," said Guardianship's attorney James J. Thornton, according to the Herald.
Dawson didn't comment, but Brown said the funeral home's previous owner entered into the contracts illegally.
"We are victims and just as innocent," Brown said.
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Dawson, 55, was an 8-time All-Star who spent 19 years in the majors with the Expos, Cubs, Red Sox and Marlins. He learned in January that he'll be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown in July.
He's still an executive with the Marlins.
