I am presently defending Lubbock County in a lawsuit filed by six individual's whose loved ones' remains cannot be located in the City cemetery. The plaintiffs' lawyer has another 60-or-so plaintiffs waiting to be joined. The deceased were buried at County expense as paupers in the City-owned cemetery between the 1940's and the 1980's (although the plaintiffs keep amending their petition alleging new dates, so the exact facts have been difficult to pin down.) I may reccomend we go to cremation as a way of avoiding these issues in the future. I am also looking into an amendment to our "general assistance" regulations (which include burials of paupers) to require any interested party to come forward to claim a body or waive their right to complain later about the way it was disposed of.

Being a native of the beautiful Hub City with family still living there, and having lost a great deal of money there in an ill-fated private practice several years ago, I maintain a measure of interest in Lubbock. So I must inquire. I've heard about your suit, but I haven't yet gotten a handle on what the legal basis is for the family members' claims. Is this a constitutional claim? Due process? Takings? Are they evading limitations by some discovery rule theory? Or is this a case of the tried-and-true wisdom from the early '90s show "In Living Color": "Who got mo' money than the gub'ment?"

As for the regulatory idea, I think it's a sound one. We have opted to use cremation as the exclusive means for disposal of paupers' bodies. The idea of setting a specific time frame for family members/interested parties to come forward and claim the body is a sound one. I think a time limit reasonably based on health concerns (related to the unpleasant consequences of decomposition) will be fully supportable. Precisely what that time frame might be would probably be a matter best determined after some input from a public health expert.