ST. LOUIS — A cemetery association that sought relief from a $2,500-per-day fine and a court order to disinter the remains of a Ukrainian-born mathematics teacher has found a jurisdictional matter settled at the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District.
A three-judge panel held that St. Louis County Circuit Court Judge Gloria Clark Reno lacked jurisdiction to enter writs of execution for disinterment on a party not subject to litigation.
The Chevra Kadisha Cemetery Association, which operates a Jewish cemetery in University City, was granted a permanent writ of prohibition Aug. 15 from an order Reno had entered over the remains of Gregoriy Bozenson, who died in September 2012.
Reno had held the cemetery in contempt for not complying with court orders from July 2015 and August 2016, which directed the cemetery to make Bozenson's remains available to his heirs to be buried in Ukraine.
In its ruling, the Court of Appeals held that the cemetery association was not a party to breach of contract litigation that the administrator of Bozenson's estate had filed against American Mortuary and Cremation Service.
Background information in the ruling states that six months before his death, Bozenson entered into a contract with the mortuary for cremation. The contract stipulated that his remains would be shipped to his heirs for burial next to his late wife in Ukraine.
In the suit brought by Bozenson's administrator, the right of sepulcher - or access to the grave - was requested and granted by the circuit court.
The plaintiffs settled the breach-of-contract suit with the mortuary, and in the meantime the cemetery did not allow the disinterment, the ruling states.
Appeals court Judges Lawrence Mooney, Gary Gaertner Jr. and Angela Quigless found that in holding the cemetery in contempt, Reno ruled against an entity that is not a party.
"Here, the cemetery is not a party or otherwise bound by the disinterment order," the ruling states. "Thus, the trial court did not have jurisdiction over the cemetery and it cannot be held in contempt for failing to abide by that order."