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Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Florida Court Considers Whether Human Remains Are Estate Property


Juan Antúnez of the Florida Probate & Trust Litigation Blog reports on an odd case out of Florida. A father wants his deceased son's ashes declared property and divided between him and the deceased's mother along with the rest of the deceased's estate.

Twenty-three-year-old Scott Wilson died in 2010. His divorced parents agreed to cremate his remains, but have yet to agree on what to do with the ashes. Deadlocked in court, Wilson's father suggested a compromise to the court: split the ashes between him and Wilson's mother so that each could choose where to bury part of Wilson's remain. To make the compromise work, Wilson's father argued that the ashes were property includable in Wilson's estate and subject to partition between Wilson's father and mother.

The court rejected the property argument. The issue was one of first impression for the court, and the judge turned to English common law for an answer, quoting from Blackstone for the proposition that human remains are beyond the reach of property law. 

The facts of this particularly case may be odd, but disputes over the remains of a deceased family member are not uncommon. According to Antúnez, the real problem in the Wilson case is the lack of any "mechanism under Florida law for resolving the kind of burial dispute represented by this case." 

For an answer, Antúnez points to the article Uniform Acts-Can the Dead Hand Control the Dead Body? The Case for a Uniform Bodily Remains Law. This article "provides a detailed, well-researched and thoughtful proposed statute from beginning to end."

Uniform Acts-Can the Dead Hand Control the Dead Body? The Case for a Uniform Bodily Remains Law, written by Western New England University School of Law student Tracie Kester, won the 2006 William J. Pierce Award from the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws.