Court Opinion

ID: 9538131
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:31:03.286309+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:57:32.256192
License: Public Domain

Prager, J.,
dissenting: I respectfully dissent. In my judgment the state is correct in its position that the words “immediately required” in K. S. A. 16-301 should be interpreted to mean “when needed by reason of the death of the person for whom the casket is purchased.” A casket usually is not “immediately required” until a person dies. As pointed out in the majority opinion the concern of the legislature expressed by the statute emanated from the possibility of fraud which can arise from sales of burial merchandise to young persons where the purchase price is collected long in advance of any actual need for such merchandise.
In State, ex rel., v. Anderson, 195 Kan. 649, 408 P. 2d 864, we held that when cemetery lots and burial vaults are sold by a cemetery corporation upon installment contracts such corporation is required to comply with the statutory provisions for the protection of the purchasers. I see no logical reason to distinguish between cemetery lots, burial vaults, and caskets. In the case of burial lots the cemetery corporation may execute a deed and vest immediate title in the purchaser of the lots. Upon the execution and delivery of the deed the fee title to the lot would normally pass to the purchaser. In Anderson we construed the statute then effective to mean that when money is received in installments by *219defendants pursuant to an installment contract for the sale of a lot — whether a deed is delivered or not and whether the sale is to be deemed technically completed or not — at least ten percent of such installment payment shall be set aside for the permanent maintenance fund. The same rationale should be applied in this case to the sale of caskets on an installment basis. Such sales present opportunity for fraud and deceit in the same way that preneed sales of cemetery lots or burial vaults present such a hazard. The opinion of the majority in my judgmént has subverted the spirit and language of the statute by permitting the installment sale of caskets where the purchase price is collected long in advance of any actual need for such merchandise.