Please explain Health & Safety Code 7750 of California Law
Full Question:
My question is on disinterment. My father's grave at Rose Hills was flooded in 1998. They have been stalling us on moving him. They got a court order in 2000 and moved 3,000 graves. We want to have our dad move to a dry, stable location. They said we can not be present when he is removed. Health & Safety Code 7750 indicates we can if we give proper notice which I did. They are telling me that part of the law does not apply to only (1) grave being moved, it only applies when several bodies are being moved. I don't see where it indicates that.
11/20/2007 |
Category: Courts |
State: California |
#12593
Answer:
The following are California statutes:
§ 7500 Health & Safety.
No remains of any deceased person shall be removed from any
cemetery, except upon written order of the health department having
jurisdiction, or of the superior court of the county in which such
cemetery is situated. A duplicate copy of the order shall be
maintained as a part of the records of the cemetery. Any person who
removes any remains from any cemetery shall keep and maintain a true
and correct record showing:
(a) The date such remains were removed.
(b) The name and age of the person removed, when these particulars
can be conveniently obtained and the place to which the remains were
removed.
(c) The cemetery and the plot therein in which such remains were
buried.
If the remains are disposed of other than by interment, a record
shall be made and kept of such disposition. The person making the
removal shall deliver to the cemetery authority operating the
cemetery from which the remains were removed, a true, full and
complete copy of such record.
§ 7501 Health & Safety.
A cemetery authority shall not remove or permit the removal of any
interred remains, unless a permit for the removal has been issued by
the local registrar of the district in which the premises are
located, and delivered to the cemetery authority. Any person
entitled by law to remove any remains may apply to the local
registrar for a permit to remove them. The local registrar shall
issue a permit, which in all cases, shall specify the name of a
cemetery where the remains shall be interred, and shall retain a
copy, except that if cremated remains are to be buried at sea as
provided in Section 7117 of this code, the permit shall so specify
and indicate the county where the fact of burial at sea shall be
reported.
§ 7502 Health & Safety.
In the disinterment, transportation and removal of human remains
under Chapter 4 of this part a cemetery authority need not obtain a
separate permit for the disinterment, transportation or removal of
the remains of each person, but disinterment, transportation and
removal of human remains shall be made subject to reasonable rules
and regulations relative to the manner of disinterring, transporting
or removing such remains as may be adopted by the board of health or
health officer of the city or city and county in which the cemetery
lands are situated.
§ 7525 Health & Safety.
The remains of a deceased person may be removed from a plot in a
cemetery with the consent of the cemetery authority and the written
consent of one of the following in the order named:
(a) The surviving spouse.
(b) The surviving children.
(c) The surviving parents.
(d) The surviving brothers or sisters.
§ 7526 Health & Safety.
If the required consent can not be obtained, permission by the
superior court of the county where the cemetery is situated is
sufficient.
§ 7527 Health & Safety.
Notice of application to the court for such permission shall be
given, at least ten days prior thereto, personally, or at least
fifteen days prior thereto if by mail, to the cemetery authority and
to the persons not consenting, and to every other person or
association on whom service of notice may be required by the court.
§ 7528 Health & Safety.
This article does not apply to or prohibit the removal of any
remains from one plot to another in the same cemetery or the removal
of remains by a cemetery authority from a plot for which the purchase
price is past due and unpaid, to some other suitable place; nor does
it apply to the disinterment of remains upon order of court or
coroner.
§ 7600 Health & Safety.
The governing body of any city having a population of more than
fifteen hundred and not exceeding one hundred thousand, may, by
ordinance, and under such rules and regulations as it may adopt,
provide for the disinterring and removal of all human remains from
cemeteries in which no interments have been made for a period of two
years, which are within the city, or owned and controlled by the city
and located without its boundaries.
§ 7700 Health & Safety.
The governing body of any city or city and county, having a
population of more than one hundred thousand persons, may order the
disinterment and removal of all human remains interred in all or any
part of any cemetery of more than five acres in extent situated
within its limits, where the right of interment in the cemetery has
been prohibited by law for a period of fifteen years or more,
whenever the governing body, by ordinance, declares that the further
maintenance of all or any part of the cemetery as a burial place for
the human dead threatens or endangers the health, safety, comfort or
welfare of the public and demands the disinterment and removal beyond
the limits of the city, or city and county, of the human remains
interred therein.
§ 7701 Health & Safety.
The governing body of such city or city and county may in any
ordinance ordering or directing the disinterment and removal of such
remains prescribe reasonable rules and regulations governing the
manner of making disinterments and removals and providing for
reinterment in cemeteries outside the city or city and county limits.
The ordinance shall prescribe a reasonable time of not less than
two years in which the removal of remains may be made by the cemetery
authority, or by the owners or holders of interment spaces, or by the
relatives or friends of those whose remains are interred in the
cemetery, and may also provide that if the remains are not removed
within the period fixed, the city or city and county will itself
proceed to remove the remains and reinter them in another cemetery or
cemeteries outside the city or city and county limits.
§7750 Health & Safety.
At any time before the date fixed for the removal of remains by the
cemetery authority, any relative or friend of any person whose
remains are interred in the cemetery from which removals are to be
made may give the cemetery authority written notice that he desires
to be present when the remains are disinterred or are reinterred.
§ 7800 Health & Safety.
At any time prior to the removal by a cemetery authority of the
remains of any person, any relative or friend of the decedent may
voluntarily remove and dispose of the remains.
§ 7801 Health & Safety.
The person desiring to cause the removal shall, prior to removal,
deliver to the cemetery authority an affidavit stating the name of
the decedent whose remains it is desired to remove and, so far as is
known to affiant, the date of burial and the names and places of
residence of the heirs at law of the decedent. If the person
desiring to cause the removal is not an heir at law of the person
whose remains he desires to remove, the removal shall not be made by
him until he has delivered to the cemetery authority the written
consent of a majority of the known heirs at law of the decedent who
are residents of this State. The statements in the affidavit are
sufficient evidence of the number, names, and residences of the heirs
at law for all of the purposes of this article, and the written
consent of the majority of the heirs at law named in the affidavit is
sufficient authority for the cemetery authority to permit the removal
of the remains.
§ 7802 Health & Safety.
Removal of all remains in a plot without the filing of an affidavit
of consent may be caused by any of the following:
(a) The purchaser or owner of the plot.
(b) The purchaser or owner of the right of interment in the plot.
(c) Any one of joint purchasers or owners of the plot or of the
right of interment in the plot.
§ 7803 Health & Safety.
If the right, title or interest of any grantee of any plot or of
the right of interment therein has passed by succession to the heir
or heirs at law of the grantee without distribution by order of
court, the heir or heirs at law may remove the remains of persons
interred in the plot. The affidavit of any heir at law setting out
the facts of heirship shall be accepted by the cemetery authority as
sufficient evidence of the fact of the transfer.
§ 7804 Health & Safety.
Whenever remains are removed by a relative or friend of a decedent,
under the provisions of this chapter, the person causing the removal
is entitled to remove any vault, monument, headstone, coping or other
improvement appurtenant to the interment space from which the remains
have been removed. The affidavit or written consent given under the
provisions of this chapter are sufficient authority for the cemetery
authority to permit the removal of any such appurtenance.
§ 7805 Health & Safety.
If such appurtenances remain on the plot for more than ninety days
after the removal of the last human remains, they may be removed and
disposed of by the cemetery authority, and thereafter no person
claiming any interest in the plot, or any such appurtenance shall
maintain in any court any action in relation to any such
appurtenance.
