It’s enough to grieve when you lose someone close to you. It’s more enough to then also have to deal with a Palm Beach probate regarding that someone’s Florida property. It’s very tough when you have trouble with the Florida burial or the handling of the body. After all, most loved ones want to have a simple, solemn burial which reflects the person’s wishes for Florida burial and wishes for the handling of the body.
A September 17, 2014 legal opinion from Miami’s appeals court deals with a lawsuit between heirs & a funeral home regarding the shipping of a decedent’s body and the wake and burial which was to take place. If you are involved in a Florida probate from Palm Beach to Broward County or Miami, this recent Florida burial lawsuit legal opinion may provide some insight.
Florida Probate Code & Florida Probate– burial, Florida funeral, last wishes
- The Florida probate rules and the Florida Probate Code generally want to have a person’s last wishes fulfilled
- Generally, a person can set forth, in writing, his or her wishes of how they want to be buried in Florida.
- Cremated?
- In Florida? Out of Florida?
- Where do you want to be buried?
- Wake and funeral or celebration of life in Florida?
Florida Probate Litigation Over Cemetaries, Handling of the Body, Funeral
- Sadly, some Palm Beach probate litigation law firms have to step in to represent a family member or heir regarding how a Florida resident will be buried….
- Or not buried
- Or cremated or not cremated…
- And where the wake, funeral or service will take place
- Florida estate lawyers from Palm Beach Gardens, to Plantation, Florida know all to well that sometimes — many times ?— family members just can agree
- In fact, Palm Beach estate litigators will tell you that it’s OFTEN that a second or third husband or wife — the surviving Florida widow — will have a probate disagreement with the adult children from a prior marriage about where burial will take place, when, etc.
- Probate litigators arguing about when a tombstone goes up? Yes
- Estate lawsuits over what the tombstone says? Yup.
- This recent Miami lawsuit about cremation, burial and the handling of the body involved tortious interference, intentional infliction of emotional distress and punitive damages
- This case perhaps, more so, stands for the Florida legal principle that to bring a claim for punitive damages, you must proffer evidence which would permit a Florida trial court to permit you to add a claim for punitive damages to your Florida lawsuit.
So, if you want to read about a recent Miami lawsuit over the shipping of the wrong body, you can follow the link below to read Florida’s 3rd District Court of Appeal’s opinion on this Florida lawsuit regarding burial….or the handling of the body of the Florida decedent. http://www.3dca.flcourts.org/Opinions/3D14-1240.pdf