Morning journal and courier., 1881-02-28
Monday Morning, Feb. %, 1881.
AN INTERESTING LAW CASE.

|
A dispute about the right of husband to
remove dead wife's remains from one ceme-
terry, to another is not very seemly affair,
and, fortunately, such disputes are not COM
| mon. Some Massachusetts people have,
| however, been engaged in quarrel of this
| kind, which has just been settled by the Su-
preme Court of the State. The case was that
of Nathaniel Weld vs. Gideon Walker and
others, the others being a person named
Ivers and the corporation owning and man
| aging the Forest Hills cemetery.
Mr.. Weld in his bill alleged, in substance,
| that two days after the death of his wife he
| consented to her burial, in coffin and grave
clothes procured by himself, in a lot in the
cemetery of the defendant corporation, owned
| by the husband of one of the two sisters of his
wife that he consented to such burial while in
great distress of mind and worn out by taking
care of his wife during her last illness, and
yielded to continued importVnities of the
| sisters and the husband of one of them much
against his own wishes and feelings, fearing
that they would make trouble for him if he
did not consent, and which he should not
have done had his mind been in condition to
realize the situation that he has no right or
authority to take care of or adorn her grave
in that lot, or to bury other of his or her
family or friends there, or to be buried him
self by her side that he owns jointly with
his co-heirs lot in the Mount Hope cerne-
terry, in which lot his father and mother are
buried, and in which he wishes that his late
wife and himself, at his death, may be laid
that he desires to remove to this lot her re-
MAINS with the coffin containing them, and
the stones and monuments placed by him at
her grave, and has obtained permit in due
form from the proper board of health for
that purpose; that he requested of the de-
PENDANTS permission to do SO in careful and
proper manner, doing no damage to the lot
in which she is now deposited, and leaving
that lot in good condition, and that they re-
fused such permission.
The case was heard before justice of the
Supreme Court, who made a final decree in
favor of the plaintiff, by which it was or
dered that Nathaniel Weld, the plaintiff, be
permitted to remove the remains of Mary P.
Weld, and the casket clothes, stones and
monuments from the lot of the defendants,
Walker and Ivers, in the Forest Hills ceme
terry to the lot of Nathaniel Weld in Mount
Hope cemetery, in a careful and proper man
ner, doing no unnecessary damage to the lot
of the defendants Walker and Ivers, and
leaving the same in proper condition and
that the defendants Walker and Ivers and the
Forest Hill cemetery and their agents be en-
joined from hindering and opposing Or in any
way preventing Weld, with such assistants
and servants as may be necessary and prop
er, from entering in proper manner and
at proper times upon the lot of Walker and
Ivers in Forest Hills cemetery and disinter-
ring the casket and remains of Mary P. Weld
and removing the same, with said clothes,
stones and monuments from the lot in such
cemetery, and from in any way interfering to
prevent the disinterment and removal of the
same to the Mount Hope cemetery. An ap-
peal was taken by the defendant to the full
court, and the decree has now been affirmed
by that court, it being held that ''the decree
is warranted by the frame of the bill" In
the opinion, which is by the chief justice, the
court says that neither the husband nor the
next of kin have, strictly speaking, any right
of property in a dead body but eontrover-
sizes between them as to the place of it's burial
are, in this country, where there are no eccle-
siastical courts, within the jurisdiction of a
court of equity. 1t is the husbands right
and duty to bury his deceased wife When a
body has once been buried, one has the
right to remove it without the consent of the
owner of the grave, or leave of the proper
ecclesiastical, municipal or Judicial authority.
And they also say eve are all of the opin-
ion that it was in the authority of the justice
before whom the hearing was had to decide
that the plaintiff never freely consented to
the burial of his wife in the lot in the Forest
Hill cemetery, with the intention or under
standing that it should be her final resting
place; and that case was made out in
which court of chancery, in the exercise of
its undoubted jurisdiction, may order the de-
PENDANTS to permit him to remove her body,
coffin and tombstones to his own lot in which
his parents are buried