Meagher v. Driscoll
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Tort in the nature of trespass quare clausum fregit for the removal of the remains of the plaintiff’s deceased child from Lot No. 4 in Holyhood Cemetery in Brookline, on September 23,1865. Answer, that the plaintiff had forfeited any right of burial which he ever had in that lot, and that the defendant removed the remains and buried them elsewhere in the discharge of his duty as superintendent of the cemetery.
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Tort in the nature of trespass quare clausum fregit for the removal of the remains of the plaintiff’s deceased child from Lot No. 4 in Holyhood Cemetery in Brookline, on September 23,1865. Answer, that the plaintiff had forfeited any right of burial which he ever had in that lot, and that the defendant removed the remains and buried them elsewhere in the discharge of his duty as superintendent of the cemetery. At the trial in the superior court, before Ames, C. J., there was evidence that in December 1863 the plaintiff selected the lot on account of its neighborhood to a place where the…
1Opinion of the CourtFoster, J.
By the common law, “ though the heir has a property in the monuments and escutcheons of his ancestors, yet he has none in their bodies or ashes; nor can he bring any civil action against such as indecently at least, if not impiously, violate and disturb their remains when dead and buried. The person, indeed, who has the freehold of the soil may bring an action of trespass against such as dig and disturb it; and if any one, in taking up a dead body, steals the shroud or other apparel, it will be felony, for the property thereof remains in the executor or whoever was at the charge of the…
2Cases cited1 opinion
- Lowe v. CommonwealthCourt of Appeals of Kentucky · 1860
3Cited by84 opinions
- Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway Co. v. PrenticeSupreme Court of the United States · 1893
- Spade v. Lynn & Boston RailroadMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1897
- Larson v. ChaseSupreme Court of Minnesota · 1891
- Chapman v. Western Union Telegraph Co.Supreme Court of Georgia · 1892
- Darcy v. . Presbyterian HospitalNew York Court of Appeals · 1911
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