Court Opinion

ID: 9378409
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-03-10 15:04:34.085566+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:20.907684
License: Public Domain

RENDERED: MARCH 3, 2023; 10:00 A.M.
                        NOT TO BE PUBLISHED

                Commonwealth of Kentucky
                          Court of Appeals

                             NO. 2021-CA-1069-MR

LAURA KATHRYN STRADER                                                APPELLANT

                  APPEAL FROM BARREN CIRCUIT COURT
v.               HONORABLE JOHN T. ALEXANDER, JUDGE
                         ACTION NO. 19-CI-00585

ULYSSES W. “WOODY” STRADER;
CARLOLYN STRADER; AND JULIE
STRADER                                                              APPELLEES

                                    OPINION
                                   AFFIRMING

                                  ** ** ** ** **

BEFORE: THOMPSON, CHIEF JUDGE; ACREE AND CETRULO, JUDGES.

ACREE, JUDGE: Laura Kathryn Strader, Appellant, appeals both the Barren

Circuit Court’s September 5, 2019 restraining order and its July 22, 2021 findings

of fact, conclusions of law, and order. The circuit court permanently enjoined

Appellant from exhuming and reinterring the remains of her father in a cemetery

plot of her choice. Finding no error, we affirm.
                                   BACKGROUND

                Appellant is the daughter of William Strader who died intestate on

January 15, 2018, in Hiseville, Kentucky. He did not instruct his kin as to where to

bury him. Appellant survived her father, as did William’s parents and a sister

(collectively, Appellees). Appellant lived in Chicago and would occasionally talk

to her father on the phone. William had been sick for a year preceding his death,

and his mother often provided care for him.

                William’s parents contacted a local funeral home and made an

appointment to discuss funeral arrangements. Appellant was aware of this

appointment, but instead scheduled an appointment of her own with the funeral

home shortly before her grandparents’ appointment. During Appellant’s

appointment, Appellant expressed to the manager of the funeral home her wishes

regarding pallbearer selections, music, and floral arrangements. She expressed no

other preferences during the meeting. Appellant never expressed a preference

regarding the burial site during the meeting nor during the funeral service.

                William was buried in the Hiseville Cemetery. For seventy years, the

cemetery has included an area designated for the Strader family. This area is

indicated by a stone monument engraved with the family name. William’s parents

selected a grave marker for William’s grave which matched the others in the

Strader plot.

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             Sometime after her father was buried, Appellant purchased a larger

stone marker differing in style from the others in the Strader plot. Upon delivery

of the marker to the cemetery, cemetery staff discovered the new monument was

too large to be placed on William’s grave, and it was thereafter returned to the

monument company.

             Over one and a half years after William’s burial, Appellees discovered

Appellant intended to exhume William and reinter him elsewhere in the Hiseville

Cemetery. Appellant had purchased a single plot in an area of the cemetery

outside of the Strader family area and planned to place the grave marker she had

purchased over the new plot.

             On September 5, 2019, Appellees filed an action seeking to

permanently enjoin Appellant from relocating William’s remains; the circuit court

granted their motion for temporary injunctive relief until a hearing could be had on

Appellant’s right to exhume her father’s body for reburial.

             Appellant asserted, as William’s sole surviving child, that she had

legal authority to decide where William is to be buried and, therefore, she should

not be prevented from exhuming and reinterring him. However, the circuit court

permanently enjoined Appellant from relocating William’s body on July 22, 2021,

finding Appellees would suffer mental anguish should William’s body be exhumed

and reinterred. This appeal followed.

                                         -3-
                                STANDARD OF REVIEW

                “A party may obtain injunctive relief in the circuit court by (a)

restraining order, (b) temporary injunction, or (c) permanent injunction in a final

judgment.” CR1 65.01. The circuit court’s legal analysis in granting an injunction

“must often be tempered by the equities of any situation,” and thus “injunctive

relief is basically addressed to the sound discretion of the trial court.” Maupin v.

Stansbury, 575 S.W.2d 695, 697-98 (Ky. App. 1978) (citing Bartman v. Shobe,

353 S.W.2d 550 (Ky. App. 1962)). Appellate courts have no power to set aside an

injunction “[u]nless a trial court has abused that discretion.” Id. A trial court has

abused its discretion when its “decision was arbitrary, unreasonable, unfair, or

unsupported by sound legal principles.” Commonwealth ex rel. Conway v.

Thompson, 300 S.W.3d 152, 162 (Ky. 2009).

                                         ANALYSIS

                Appellant argues the circuit court erred both when it granted a

restraining order at the outset of the circuit court action and when it granted its

final permanent injunction. “Injunctive relief is proper only where the party

seeking such relief has made a clear showing that his rights will be violated and

that, as a result, he will suffer immediate and irreparable injury.” Auxier v. Bd. of

Embalmers & Funeral Dirs., 553 S.W.2d 286, 288 (Ky. App. 1977).

1
    Kentucky Rules of Civil Procedure.

                                            -4-
                In its conclusions of law and order, the circuit court discussed at

length Appellant’s legal authority to exhume and reinter her father. The circuit

court concluded KRS2 367.93117 – which determines who has the ability to decide

the disposition of a decedent’s body – does not apply to situations where a body is

proposed to be relocated. The statute does not provide Appellant with the right to

exhume and reinter her father; the court also noted Appellant waived the right to

decide the initial disposition of William’s body because she indicated no

preference regarding his burial site before or during his funeral.

                The circuit court also determined the limited Kentucky case law on

reinterring remains did not support Appellant’s desired course of action because

Appellant’s situation did not implicate the sorts of interests our case law deemed

sufficient to override “the policy of the law to protect the dead from disturbance

and maintain the sanctity of the grave[.]” Brunton v. Roberts, 97 S.W.2d 413, 416

(Ky. 1936). The circuit court also devoted a portion of its analysis to the rights of

Appellees that Appellant’s conduct would have violated absent an injunction,

Kentucky recognizes a cause of action for “unwarrantable disturbance or

interference with the burial ground or the graves therein.” Id. at 415.

                Because Appellees sought injunctive relief, it was proper for the

circuit court to analyze the Appellees’ rights and the nature of their injury should

2
    Kentucky Revised Statutes.

                                            -5-
Appellant relocate her father’s remains, rather than the substantive rights of

Appellant. Regardless, the circuit court did not abuse its discretion when it granted

the underlying permanent injunction. The circuit court correctly recognized “that

next of kin have a right to recover damages for mental anguish for ‘unwarranted

interference with the grave of a deceased person[.]’” R.B. Tyler Co. v. Kinser, 346

S.W.2d 306, 308 (Ky. 1961) (citations omitted). There is no reason to exempt

other family members from such liability.

             This right is rooted in common-sense policy. “It is based upon the

reality of an intrusion into tender feelings.” Id. “The resting places of the dead

have been revered and regarded as hallowed ground from the earliest days.” Id.

While we recognize this policy may be overridden in certain circumstances, “[t]he

natural desire of most of us that there shall forever be an uninterrupted repose of

our own bodies, and a considerate regard for the sensibilities, reverence, and love

of the kindred and friends of the deceased, demand that sepulchers shall not be

violated except for compelling reasons.” Brunton, 97 S.W.2d at 416.

             While the circuit court relied on Brake v. Mother of God’s Cemetery

to demonstrate Appellant did not have the right to reinter her father, the case

applies equally to illustrate when reinternment of human remains is unwarranted

and thus when the right against unwarranted disturbance of a grave arises. In

Brake, a young widow sought to relocate the remains of her husband from

                                         -6-
Covington, Kentucky, to Cincinnati, Ohio, because it was quite inconvenient for

her to take her monthly trip to visit the gravesite; it took her an hour and a half by

automobile to travel to Covington – three hours if by other means of transportation

– and if her husband was moved to the proposed site her travel would be cut in

half. Brake v. Mother of God’s Cemetery, 251 Ky. 667, 65 S.W.2d 739, 739

(1933). She sought an injunction requiring her late husband’s parents and the

cemetery to allow her to reinter the remains. Id. Her husband’s parents wanted

their son’s remains to stay put, noting to the circuit court the widow had allowed

the parents to make the decisions regarding the funeral and burial. Id. The circuit

court dismissed her petition. Id. at 740.

             Our predecessor Court of Appeals noted that, should someone seek to

“disturb the quiet of a grave[,]” there must be “‘due regard to the interests of the

public, the wishes of the decedent, and the rights and feelings of those entitled to

be heard by reason of relationship or association.’” Id. at 740 (quoting Yome v.

Gorman, 242 N.Y. 395, 152 N.E. 126, 128 (1926)). “‘One may not fix their values

in advance, for in so doing one would overlook the varying force of

circumstance.’” Id. (quoting Yome, 152 N.E. at 128). We concluded the widow’s

circumstances warranted reversal, thereby allowing her to relocate her husband’s

remains; primarily, we based this decision on the fact that it would be a “great

                                            -7-
inconvenience” to her to visit her husband’s grave if it were not moved. Id. at 740-

41.

             Appellant’s desire in the instant case to relocate William does not

reflect comparable circumstances which would justify overriding the policy against

disturbing the repose of the deceased. At the time of the funeral, Appellant made

no objection to Appellees’ decisions regarding William’s burial place. Apparently,

the sole reason Appellant wants to remove her father from the Strader plot is so she

can place over her father’s grave the monument she purchased – a purchase made

long after her father died. She seeks to accomplish this by moving her father to a

different plot in the same cemetery. Though she testified she wanted to be buried

next to her father, the circuit court noted Appellant only purchased a single plot to

relocate her father.

             Appellant provided no compelling justification to the trial court to

overcome the policy preference in favor of letting the dead lie and, therefore, her

proposed reinternment of William is unwarranted. See R.B. Tyler Co., 346 S.W.2d

at 308. Accordingly, the circuit court’s permanent injunction was not arbitrary,

unreasonable, unfair, or unsupported by sound legal principles, and thus did not

constitute an abuse of discretion.

                                         -8-
             Though Appellant also contests the initial restraining order, any errors

in the circuit court’s restraining order are rendered moot by this Court’s affirmance

of the circuit court’s permanent injunction.

                                  CONCLUSION

             We affirm the Barren Circuit Court’s September 5, 2019 order

restraining and its July 22, 2021 findings of fact, conclusions of law, and order.

             ALL CONCUR.

BRIEFS FOR APPELLANT:                      BRIEF FOR APPELLEES:

David F. Broderick                         Bobby H. Richardson
Bowling Green, Kentucky                    Glasgow, Kentucky

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