Estate Planning

Planes, Trains, Remains

By Hull and Hull LLP

In estate litigation, it is not uncommon to deal with issues regarding human remains. People may be fighting over remains, a person's remains may need to be transported, and so on.

In the Canadian film 'Highway 61', a Canadian barber/would be jazz musician finds a frozen corpse in his backyard, and agrees to accompany a roadie who claims the dead man as her brother to the United States. Meanwhile, the roadie actually intends to use the body to smuggle drugs to the United States. Clearly, this would constitute an extreme violation of any number of statutes.

But how about transporting remains via post or courier? Does one commit a faux pas by transmitting remains this way? While Canada Post will ship cremated remains, Canada Post's Priority Worldwide service refuses to ship 'human corpses, human organs or body parts, cremated or disinterred human remains'. Purolator refuses to ship remains to domestic or U.S. destinations. Internationally, the easiest way to transport remains is to hire a service which will fly the remains out of the country, or you can fly with them yourself. In conclusion, shipping remains by mail is safe to do within Canada (although not by Purolator); just do not cross the border unless you're willing to have someone take a plane trip with the remains of the deceased.

Sarah Halsted – Click Here For More Information About Sarah Halsted

Full post as published by Toronto Estate Law Blog on March 11, 2011 (boomark / email).