Death Care Compliance Law

• Missouri Legislation: A New Pet Opportunity for Cemeteries?
  Missouri law, like most states’, restricts cemeteries to being either exclusively for human burials or for animal burials.   Accordingly, it has been illegal for Missouri cemeteries to honor a lot owner’s request to be buried with a pet.  However, legislation has been introduced that would authorize Missouri cemeteries for the burial of both humans and... […]
  Bill Stalter
• Cemetery Marketing: Voices from the Past
  Fall is the time when many cemeteries host their most effective marketing program: voices from the past. In conjunction with a local community theater, the cemetery will research their “residents” for interesting characters to portray.  The community theater actors will then bring those characters to life during a tour of the cemetery.   These tours generate... […]
  Bill Stalter
• Cemeteries’ Evolution for Cremation: Think Small
  The cemetery is not dying, it is evolving. Since its creation in the 1830’s, America’s public cemetery has gone through three major evolutions.  When American was an agrarian society, we buried our dead in a small section of the family farm.  As towns grew into cities, the public cemetery was created out of necessity.  Located... […]
  Bill Stalter
• Grantor Care Funds: Too Small to Pay for Flowers
  It would be my assumption that the majority of the country’s cemeteries do not maintain a trust for the maintenance and care of its graves.  While this may differ from state to state, most states’ perpetual care statutes exempt small family cemeteries, not for profit cemeteries, municipal cemeteries, county cemeteries and church cemeteries from their... […]
  Bill Stalter
• NPS’ Trustee and Income Distributions: Who needs Income?
  We had hoped that the Trial Court’s Finding of Facts would shed some light on how a Missouri preneed trust holding life insurance would have income to distribute.  Despite being invested primarily in life insurance policies, Allegiant Bank made monthly income distributions to NPS.  The Trial Court made several findings on how Allegiant Bank failed... […]
  Bill Stalter
• NPS’ Trial Court: Trustees and Individual Deposit Records
  “Allegiant [Bank] violated the industry standard of care by not maintaining consumer-level deposit records, because, as here, where there are multiple beneficiaries of a trust, the trustee must keep records of the individual deposits made for each consumer.” This finding by the trial court in the NPS civil trial had to come as a shock... […]
  Bill Stalter
• Glendale Memorial Park Cemetery: A New Lease on Life
  It is inevitable that a cemetery will run out of graves (and revenues) and eventually become the ward of taxpayers. For cemeteries with ample inventory of graves, the public’s embrace of cremation translates to declining grave sales and the acceleration of the cemetery’s demise. For several years, the media have been making these dire predictions... […]
  Bill Stalter
• Allegiant Bank and NPS: Know Your Client
  PNC Bank has been hit with $15 million of punitive damages because Allegiant Bank did not know its client. Before opening a fiduciary account, banks are required to perform due diligence on the trust’s grantor and on the trust’s purposes.   Such due diligence is referred to as ‘know your client’ or “KYC”.  KYC requirements had... […]
  Bill Stalter
• National Prearranged Services: A Serious Lack of Fiduciary Oversight
  National Prearranged Services is back in the news after a trial court issued a new $102 million judgment against PNC Bank (the corporate successor of Allegiant Bank).  Allegiant Bank served as NPS’ Missouri preneed trustee for six years beginning in 1998.  When PNC Bank agreed to purchase Allegiant in 2004, PNC performed due diligence that... […]
  Bill Stalter
• Missouri’s Right of Sepulcher: Who gets the Cremains?
  The Missouri Court of Appeals recently issued an opinion involving facts that are all too familiar with funeral directors: family members disputing who controls a funeral and the right to cremains. A mother contacted a St. Louis funeral home about arrangements for an adult son who was gravely ill.  The funeral home sold the mother... […]
  Bill Stalter