Lavigne v. Wilkinson
Supreme Court of New Hampshire
Bill in Equity, to obtain permission for the removal of the remains of the plaintiff’s first wife from the place of their original interment, and to restrain the defendant, the decedent’s daughter by a former marriage, from interfering therewith. Trial by the court. The decedent was buried in a lot controlled by the defendant, known as the Bruce lot.
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Bill in Equity, to obtain permission for the removal of the remains of the plaintiff’s first wife from the place of their original interment, and to restrain the defendant, the decedent’s daughter by a former marriage, from interfering therewith. Trial by the court. The decedent was buried in a lot controlled by the defendant, known as the Bruce lot. Two years after his wife’s death the plaintiff remarried, and shortly afterwards he purchased another burial lot, and intended to remove the remains of his wife, and re-inter them therein. The defendant upon learning of his intentions forbade the…
1Opinion of the Court
.Plummer, J.
There is strictly speaking no property in the remains of the dead; but controversies arising relative, to their interment or disinterment are in this country, which has no ecclesiastical courts, within the jurisdiction of a court of equity. Weld v. Walker, 130 Mass. 422.
The following statement of Lord Coke was probably the origin of the doctrine that there is no property in a corpse: “It is to be observed, that in every sepulcher, that hath a monument, two things are to be considered, viz. the monument, and the sepulture or buriall of the dead, the buriall of the cadaver (that is…
2Cases cited1 opinion
- Weld v. WalkerMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1881
3Cited by8 opinions
- Hood v. SprattMississippi Supreme Court · 1978
- Keck v. LevingstonCalifornia Court of Appeal · 1946
- Chinburg v. ChinburgSupreme Court of New Hampshire · 1995
- McRae v. BoothCourt of Civil Appeals of Alabama · 2006
- Maffei v. WOODLAWN MEMORIAL PARKCalifornia Court of Appeal · 2005
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