In the Matter of the Estate of Mary Florence Whalen, Michael Whalen

WATERMAN, Justice.

This expedited appeal requires our court to decide whether the Final Disposition Act, Iowa Code chapter 144C (2011), allows the surviving spouse to disregard his wife’s written instructions on where to bury her remains. The decedent’s last will and testament and her correspondence with family members included specific directions to bury her in a plot she had already purchased at a cemetery in Billings, Montana. Her surviving husband instead seeks to bury her in Iowa and claims the sole right to decide because decedent had never executed a declaration under chapter 144C…