Pennsylvania law includes a cause of action for intentional “interference with a dead body,” but has not yet adopted a cause of action for negligent interference with a corpse, a Mercer County judge found in a November 2004 opinion that he released publicly on April 25.
In Moffatt v. Baird Funeral Home, PICS Case No. 07-0655 (C.P. Mercer Nov. 10, 2004) St. John, J. (11 pages), the five children of Eleanor M. Billig alleged intentional interference with a corpse and intentional infliction of emotional distress after viewing their mother’s corpse, which they said had been improperly embalmed such that the body looked bruised, their attorney said.
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