Middleton v. Graves

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding coroner had no authority to order an autopsy in a non-coroner's case at the request of an insurance company where the autopsy was not authorized by the decedent's spouse
• holding that “it has been regarded as the settled law of this country that, for the purpose of preservation and sepulture, a surviving spouse, or next of kin, in the absence of a different disposition by will, has the right to possession of the dead body[]”
• action brought by spouse to recover damages for unauthorized autopsy, held: a surviving spouse has a right to possession of a dead body and can recover damages for injury to feelings resulting from any wrongful mutilation or mishandling of the corpse

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).