A few years ago I had a couple of yo yos come into the office for some things (and I declined their representation so this is not a real deal thing), but they mentioned that their grandfather had died in Boca Raton, FL and had left in his will that he wanted to be buried on the family farm in West Virginia.
Apparently these guys did not like the cost that the funeral home suggested, so their plan was to take their Ford F150 down to Boca, load up grandpa in the back, strap him in and everything so supposedly he wouldn’t bang around back there, and drive him to West Virginia.
Yes, I got a law degree that is in all respects valid, but this was (and still is) a new one for me. Is that even legal? Could two rednecks spitting tobacco into a soda bottle just show up to a nice funeral home with some paperwork and load up a corpse in the back for a 1,000 mile drive? What if they didn’t want a coffin (because the funeral home was “ripping them off”)?
Would their journey have to be direct? What if they stopped off in Jacksonville for a day or so and poured ice from the coolers on grandpa so he wouldn’t start attracting flies? How would the police react if stopped? Could they be charged with any “desecration of a corpse” crime if grandpa showed up back in WV a pile of maggot-infested mush, or if they “lost” him on the way?
It just seems like a really bad idea to me, but what about the legality of it? Has anyone heard of such a thing?
My grandmother spent most of her life living in northern Montana. She raised 7 kids on the family farm, and when her husband and then 9 months later her eldest son passed, both were buried in a small family plot on the farm. She made it clear that when she went she wanted to be buried there as well.
By the time she passed she was living in southern Oregon. Her two eldest surviving sons took an Amtrak to Oregon, rented a minivan that had the fold-into-the-floor seats, and brought her back to Montana in the back of that van. They left Roseburg, Oregon and arrived in Havre, Montana approx 18 hours later. They did not stay overnight anywhere, instead taking turns driving. They traveled up to Portland, along I-84 to Umatilla then up to Ritzville, where they cut over to Spokane and then to Missoula on I-90. They then cut up to Highway 2 and across to Havre. So no back roads avoiding the rozzers.
I have no idea how legal it was, but they picked up her body from a funeral home (it was in a cardboard casket similar to what’s used in cremations) and delivered it to another funeral home, so I assume everything was on the up and up.
I don’t know. But this makes me think of a fellow grad student from Mozambique who, along with another guy, had been tasked with transporting a fellow citizen’s body across several southern-African countries back to Mozambique. He said that at one border crossing, the guard insisted on seeing the body’s identification papers along with those of the two guys. They didn’t have them for the body, or at least not the ones the guard wanted to see. After a lot of back and forth, the guard finally relented, adding, as my friend was telling us while convulsed in laughter, “Next time, he has to have his papers!!!”
It depends on what states you’re traveling through.
In some states (like here in New York) it’s illegal for a private citizen to transport a corpse. You have to have a special permit which is issued to people like funeral directors, coroners, medical transport personnel, etc.
Some states allow corpses to be transported by private citizen but require them to be embalmed, which is an issue for some religions (as well as an expense). Some states will allow refrigeration as an alternative to embalming, which avoids the religious issue but would still make it difficult for a private citizen.
I know a cop who pulled over an obvious funeral home vehicle (yanno, black or silver with that fancy ‘S’ where the rear window would be) for speeding one hot, summer day. He walks up to the car & gets into the usual variant of, “What’s your story, bub?”
The driver states the air conditioning is broken; he hoists a thumb over his shoulder, & states, “…& he won’t keep.”
Years ago, my brother-in-law did exactly this. My father-in-law passed away on the coast of Oregon. He never had two nickels to rub together, and his current girlfriend had less than that. The whole family got into virtual fistfights over the burial of my mother-in-law, so asking the family for money to bury him was out of the question.
My brother-in-law loaded up his dad in the back of his truck (I think he was in some type of casket, or maybe it was in one of those cardboard containers used when transporting a body by air carrier) and hauled Dad to Willamette National Cemetery near Portland, Oregon. I doubt very much there was any type of ceremony.
If I’m understanding the OP correctly, these guys were not technically his clients. Plus they apparently consulted with him on a different legal issue and the topic of transporting a dead body just came up in conversation. So I don’t think UltraVires was under any professional obligation to conduct any research.
You’d still think someone who claims to be a lawyer would have better means and ability to look up laws than to ask a messageboard several times each week.
There are worse places to look for answers and information than in Cecil Adams’ back yard.
Never having transported a corpse, or having thought about it, this has never occurred to me, but it’s EXACTLY the sort of thing I’d expect to find a discussion about in THESE parts. Purely as an academic discussion.
Now I’m going to spend the rest of the day wondering if I’d try to sneak Granny through New York State, or if I’d bite the bullet and pay a funeral home to do it for me. I’d hate to spend the money, but I also hate awkward conversations with police officers…
I vaguely remember Caitlin Doughty talking about transporting corpses. Don’t remember if it was in a book, a TED talk, or a video. The main answer was ‘it depends on the location’, as Little Nemo already said. That would include any states you drive through. (So you can’t give a definite answer unless you know the route to be taken.)
As was probably the case in Lancia’s story, there is often a need to have paperwork stating that the body is being transferred from one certified mortician to another. So there’s a mortician to be paid on both ends of the journey.
I’m going to listen to Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?, just in case it’s there.
Well, as I’ve mentioned before (yeah, I know, I know), my dad’s a funeral director. I asked him and he said there’s no law against it. As long as you fill out the paperwork at the funeral home, you’re basically free to do so. The funeral director would think you’re pretty weird for doing so, but then they get some oddballs from time to time.
That’s about as far as you can go – you can’t just go and bury the body on your own. Not at the cemetary and especially not on your own property. You have to go to a funeral home and make arrangements there. You don’t have to have a funeral if you don’t want to, but preparing the corpse and burial – there are plenty of laws there.
So if you know anyone who’s gonna try this, make sure they have all their ducks in a row before they attempt it.
Burial laws vary by location, too, but also heavily depend on how close you are to a municipality (unincorporated land may be more lenient) and, for obvious reasons, your proximity to a water table is taken into account.
Yeah, just sprinkle some porn around it, as a distraction.
I read about this long ago. I think the two main points were a) the body needs to be processed (like embalmed), and b) it had to be in a leak-proof container. If anybody snoops, probably a good idea to have some papers showing you’re in legal possession of it.
I’ve asked a number of legal questions from time to time here, even though I have access to legal research resources. Sometimes it’s useful to have a discussion about an issue, not just content yourself with looking up statutes.
