in Re Certified Question - Waeschle v. Dragovic

The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan certified the following question to this Court pursuant to MCR 7.305(B):

Assuming that a decedent’s brain has been removed by a medical examiner in order to conduct a lawful investigation into the decedent’s cause of death, do the decedent’s next-of-kin have a right under Michigan law to possess the brain in order to properly bury or cremate the same after the brain is no longer needed for forensic examination?[1]

We granted the request to answer the question.2 Having heard the parties’ oral arguments, and having reviewed the…