Title: Identify civic laws with which a funeral director should be familiar.
Course: Introduction to Mortuary Science (14299) > Section: Understanding Laws Related to Funeral Service Practice and Public Health

Identification related to a ceremony or decedent should include

- liability of a volunteer who individually contracts to pay a funeral bill
- liability of an executor, nominated personal representative, or administrator for funeral expenses law of disinterment
- circumstances under which exhumation is permitted in criminal cases and in civil cases
- usual procedure for obtaining a disinterment authorization and the legal principles under which disinterment statutes are upheld
- who has the primary right to disinter a body and the nature of the crime of disinterment without proper authorization.

Identification related to land should include

- prohibition from further operation in a residential district
- exclusion from a subdivision by agreement of the property owners.

Identification related to a state’s rights should include

- when a funeral home or cemetery may be considered a nuisance per se
- power of eminent domain invoked to acquire land for a public cemetery
- regulation by the state and what specific action must be taken to convert land to cemetery use.

Identification related to private cemeteries should include the

- authority under which a private cemetery may enforce rules which control burial in it
- prohibited use for purposes other than burial and whether the owner has the right to decorate and mark the grave
- authority under which cemeteries are required to provide admittance to graves
- offenses related to grave desecration
- eminent domain.

Teacher Resource:

- Civic laws governing funeral directors and embalmers for the Commonwealth of Virginia, (http://www.dhp.virginia.gov/funeral/fun_laws_regs.htm)

Process/Skill Questions:

- What are the Virginia regulations regarding disinterment of human remains? Explain movement within the same cemetery and movement to a different cemetery located in a different area.
- What is the responsibility of a volunteer who signs a Statement of Funeral Goods and Services contract with a funeral home?
- Who has the right to request the disinterment of a human body?