The fallout continues and more details are coming to light after a well-known Indianapolis funeral home director was removed from his post last month.
Nathan Bluitt Jr. was dismissed from Williams and Bluitt Funeral Home “as the result of certain fiscal discrepancies uncovered in an ongoing internal investigation,” according to a statement from Service Corporation International (SCI), which owns the business. SCI opted not to share more details about the decision citing pending litigation, but Bluitt has confirmed several details that came to the Recorder’s attention in an anonymous letter from a concerned reader.
Bluitt said the conflict is rooted in a non-compete clause included in the contract he signed when he sold the business in 2011 to Wilson Financial Group (WFG), an established Black-owned funeral home acquisition firm owned by Gerald Wilson.
SCI now owns a controlling interest of WFG and has taken an active role in the everyday management of Williams and Bluitt since Wilson’s retirement was announced earlier this year.
Bluitt said after SCI became more involved in the business, its management took issue with some of the informal agreements he and Wilson had enacted, some of which are in violation of the previously mentioned non-compete clause. The primary issue, Bluitt says, is that he has conducted business for Bluitt and Son — a funeral home he owns in Kokomo, which is outside the 50-mile radius covered by the non-compete agreement — on the grounds of Williams and Bluitt and using Williams and Bluitt resources.
“The caseload is so heavy at Williams and Bluitt, I could not afford to pick the families up and take the families to Kokomo (to Bluitt and Son) and service them. I had to do everything here so I could maintain the No. 1 position (of Williams and Bluitt) in this community.”
Bluitt says Wilson was not only aware of the activity, but also participated by renting Bluitt his limousine and hearse.
“When Mr. Wilson purchased my business, he knew then and he was OK with the fact that I had services that were performed in the Indianapolis area occasionally. I have it documented that … I paid for his vehicle for those services,” Bluitt said.
“I didn’t think it was against company rules because he had even proposed from the onset that I pay him x amount of dollars for use of the facilities for (work) through Bluitt and Son.”
Another point of contention — one that has prompted Bluitt to take legal action — is Bluitt’s desire to sell the Bluitt and Son name to investors who are interested in bringing the business to Indianapolis. Bluitt says since he wouldn’t be involved in conducting the Bluitt and Son business in Indianapolis, the non-compete clause shouldn’t apply.
“I would have nothing to do with the business, nothing at all. Only selling it,” Bluitt said. “They feel that having the Bluitt and Son name operating in the same market would dilute the volume or the quantity of business that Williams and Bluitt is doing. This is something they should have considered when they bought me and knew I had a firm 52 miles away.”
The non-compete clause has a little over four years of life left, Bluitt said, and by then he would be free and clear to bring Bluitt and Son to Indianapolis.
Continuing concern
While the conflict over the non-compete clause plays out, community members are concerned about the future of Williams and Bluitt now that Bluitt himself is no longer there.
Pastor Timothy Taylor of Tabernacle Baptist Church, speaking on behalf of a group of concerned clergy members, said he’s spoken with WFG President Tony Lynch about those concerns.
“(Lynch) tried to assure us that the service is going to be the same. We tried to assure him that there’s no way the service can be the same if Mr. Bluitt is not there … the funeral home is different without Nathan Bluitt,” Taylor said. “He tried to assure us that he’s going to be involved in the community and he knows what the community needs.”
Taylor said he has heard from a national bishop of the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World who has instructed the more than two dozen Indianapolis churches under his leadership not to use Williams and Bluitt services unless Bluitt is reinstated.
Among concerns about SCI is the lack of any people of color among the company’s corporate officers and board of directors.
In a statement to the Recorder last week, SCI said the company is “committed to honoring diversity and attending to the unique needs of the African-American community.”
Among those unique concerns is the number of families who need financial assistance in honoring their loved ones, and Bluitt is known community-wide for always being willing to accommodate those families. Bluitt said last year, roughly 30 percent of the company’s hundreds of services were for families who needed financial assistance, and he said SCI had discussed with him their desire to reduce that number.
“This is a ministry to me, this is not a business. It had actually been discussed with me … cutting down the amount of services that I give to them. And I refused to do that. I don’t think that because a person is on any type of assistance that they should receive less effort from me than a person who has the money.
“But of course I understand, too, that (SCI has) to report a profit to their investors, because they are traded publicly. They’re obligated to do that. On the other hand, they knew when they bought me (that) I buried a lot of people who were financially challenged.”
SCI declined to speak with the Recorder about these concerns, but they did issue the following statement:
“The 36 hardworking, professional employees of Williams and Bluitt Funeral Home have faithfully served the Indianapolis community for many years, some for over two decades. Those same associates, who helped create the strong relationship between Williams and Bluitt and the community, will continue to work hard to serve our client families and strengthen that relationship well into the future. Williams and Bluitt has taken, and will continue to take, the concerns of its clients very seriously. Our continuing commitment to give back to the community includes many things, and one of those is considering hardship accommodations on a case-by-case basis.”
Though Bluitt has said he appreciates the outpouring of support from the community, he hopes his conflict with SCI doesn’t bring harm to the business or the employees he left behind.
“I don’t want any damage to come to the firm that I have spent a large portion of my life building, nor to the people who have been there and have helped me build it. I have considered that. … It’s not me who’s not considering the good people who are left behind,” he said. “They are good people. I trained them. My spirit is still there, as far as service is concerned.”
At Recorder press time, a meeting of SCI/WFG leadership, Bluitt, attorneys from both sides and concerned pastors was scheduled for April 26. Follow the Recorder for updates to this story.
