Lawsuit filed over Rhodes Cemetery excavation
WAYNESBURG – Descendants of people buried in Rhodes Cemetery, a small, family cemetery behind the Econo Lodge Motel in Franklin Township, have filed a lawsuit asking the court to force the motel owners to restore their family’s burial ground.
The cemetery, containing eight to 12 graves – the most recent burial having occurred in 1862 – was left as a large mound of earth after excavation was completed around it three years ago for construction of a new motel behind the existing motel.
An earlier action before the Greene County Court regarding the cemetery had been assigned by the court to mediation, which has been unable to reach a resolution.
The lawsuit was filed April 4 by William Porter and four other descendants. Those named as defendants are Nikita Lodging Inc. and principals, Nitin Patel, Harshad Patel, Keyur Patel, Mimansu Patel, Janak Patel and Nayana Patel.
The suit asks the court to award damages exceeding $35,000 and for injunctions requiring the company to stabilize the cemetery, provide access to the site and restore the cemetery to the condition it was in prior to excavation.
Keyur Patel, who gave his title as company owner, declined to comment on the suit, saying only the company was taking a different approach attempting to resolve the matter.
Phillip Hook, attorney for the plaintiffs, said the descendants filed the lawsuit hoping to see the matter resolved in a timely manner.
At this point, Hook said, the descendants’ goal is to have the cemetery restored to its condition prior to excavation. Hook said his firm had not been involved in the mediation.
He said it was the intent not to have the matter go to mediation again but to be decided in court so the descendants can receive a final judgement and a quicker resolution. In mediation, Hook noted, a mediator attempts to work out a resolution to a matter but has no authority to enforce a decision.
Excavation surrounding the cemetery left the cemetery a large mound of earth, more than 25 feet high and measuring about 65-by-61 feet.
Nikita originally planned to preserve the cemetery by building a retaining wall around it and steps leading to the graves.
However, work on the new motel was halted by the township in the fall of 2015 until Nikita could take steps to stabilize the cemetery.
Nothing apparently has been done at the site since then.
The matter first came to the court in September 2015, when Greene County President Judge Farley Toothman initiated an action by presenting a motion to require Franklin Township to declare the cemetery a public nuisance and assume care for its restoration.
Franklin Township maintained it is not responsible for correcting the problem. It has not been named as a defendant in the descendant’s suit.
Mediation involving the township and Nikita has been “on pause” for about a year, said Robbie Matesic, executive director of Greene County Department of Economic Development, which also was named by the court a party to the mediation.
“It became apparent that neither a short-term nor long-term solution was going to come out of it,” Matesic said.
Matesic said she believes the descendants’ lawsuit may be good from her perspective in that it may lead to work being done on the cemetery mound to stabilize it more quickly. The mound is currently very unstable, she said.