SJC tackles grave issue; ‘forever’ means always

Even the dead have rights, the state’s highest court has ruled.

This is a case about contract law, property law, trust law — and above all — “common decency,” the state Supreme Judicial Court wrote.

The Church of the Holy Spirit of Wayland, established in 1961, gave parishioners access to burial sites in the churchyard. Under a contract, two “cremains” could be interred in the plot for “now

“(D)isinterment or removal of remains was strictly prohibited,” that contract added. Nobody objected until the Episcopal church sold the property to a Coptic church in 2016.

Out of the 51 people buried in the churchyard, seven had family members who objected to relocation and sued over ” breach of contract,” and a few other alleged snubs.

The SJC, citing Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, ruled that when parishioners were promised a “perpetual” final resting place, that meant “forever.”

The gravesites remain untouched.