CHAPTER 1. DEFINITIONS

§1. Definitions

           As used in this Title the following terms have the following meanings unless the context clearly indicates otherwise:

           (1) "Board" means the Louisiana Cemetery Board.

           (2) "Burial" means the placement of human remains in a grave.

           (3) "Burial park" means a tract of land for the burial of human remains in the ground, used or intended to be used, and dedicated, for cemetery purposes.

           (4) "Burial vault" means a casket container placed in a grave for the purpose of burying human remains.

           (5) "Care", "endowed care", or "perpetual care" means the maintenance, repair, and care of all places where interments have been or are to be made, including the improvements made upon the places, in keeping with a well-maintained cemetery, and general overhead expense necessary for such purposes.

           (6) "Care funds", as distinguished from receipts from annual charges or gifts for current or annual care, means any cash or cash equivalent impressed with a trust by the terms of any gift, grant, contribution, payment, devise, or bequest, or pursuant to contract, accepted by any cemetery authority owning, operating, controlling, or managing a privately operated cemetery, or by any trustee or licensee, agent or custodian for the same, under R.S. 8:454(B), and the amounts set aside under R.S. 8:454(A) and 454.1(C), and any income accumulated therefrom, where legally so directed by the terms of the transaction by which the principal is established. The term "care funds" includes both general and special care funds.

           (7) "Cemetery" means a place used or intended to be used for the interment of the human dead and, to the extent allowed in accordance with this Title, pet remains. It includes a burial park, for earth interments; a mausoleum, for vault or crypt interments; a columbarium or scattering garden for cinerary interments; or a combination of one or more of these.

           (8) "Cemetery authority" means any person, firm, corporation, limited liability company, trustee, partnership, association or municipality owning, operating, controlling, or managing a cemetery or holding lands within this state for interment purposes.

           (9) "Cemetery business" and "cemetery purposes" mean any and all business and purposes requisite to, necessary for, or incident to establishing, maintaining, operating, improving or conducting a cemetery, interring human remains, and the care, preservation, and embellishment of a cemetery.

           (10) "Cemetery management organization" means a legal entity contracting as an independent contractor with a cemetery authority to manage a cemetery, but does not mean individual managers employed by or contracting directly with cemetery authorities operating under this title.

           (11) "Cemetery sales organization" means any legal entity contracting as an independent contractor with a cemetery authority to conduct sales of one or more cemetery spaces, whether by deed, servitude, grant of right to use, or otherwise, or cemetery products. Cemetery sales organization does not mean any of the following:

           (a) Individual salesmen or sales managers employed by and contracting directly with cemetery authorities operating in accordance with this law.

           (b) Funeral establishments or funeral directors operating under licenses authorized by R.S. 37:831 et seq., when dealing directly with a cemetery authority, with members of the family of a deceased person, or other persons authorized by law to arrange for the funeral or interment of such deceased human being.

           (c) An individual negotiating the sale of cemetery property as a part of his or her pre-need arrangements in accordance with Chapter 6 of this Title.

           (12) “Cemetery space” means a grave, crypt, vault, niche, tomb, lawn crypt, or any other property used or intended to be used for the interment of human remains.

           (13) "Columbarium" means a building, structure, room, or other space in a building or structure containing niches for permanent inurnment of cremated remains in a place used or intended to be used, and dedicated, for cemetery purposes.

           (14) "Community cemetery" means a cemetery owned, operated, controlled, or managed by any association or organization, in which the sale of lots, graves, crypts, vaults, or niches is restricted principally to individuals within a community.

           (15) " Corporation" means any corporation or limited liability company which is authorized by its articles or an operating agreement to conduct any one or more of the businesses of a cemetery.

           (16) "Cremated remains" means human remains after cremation in a crematory.

           (17) "Cremation" means the reduction of the body of a deceased person to cremated remains in a crematory.

           (18) "Crematory" means a building or structure containing one or more retorts for the reduction of bodies of deceased persons to cremated remains.

           (19) "Crematory and columbarium" means a building or structure containing both a crematory and columbarium.

           (20) "Crypt" or "vault" means a space in a mausoleum of sufficient size, used or intended to be used, to entomb human remains.

           (21) "Directors" means the board of directors, board of trustees or other governing body of a cemetery authority, cemetery sales organization or cemetery management organization.

           (22) "Disposition" means the interment, burial, cremation, or anatomical donation of the body of a deceased person or parts of the body of a deceased person. Disposition shall not include any prohibited act pursuant to Part I of Chapter 12 of Title 17 of the Louisiana Revised Statutes of 1950, the Anatomical Gift Act, the Louisiana Unmarked Human Burial Sites Preservation Act, or the Louisiana Historic Cemetery Preservation Act.

           (23) "Entombment" means the placement of human remains in a mausoleum.

           (24) "Family burial ground" means a cemetery in which no lots are sold to the public and in which interments are restricted to a group of persons related to each other by blood or marriage.

           (25) "Force majeure" means any of the following circumstances:

           (a) A major storm, major flood, or other similar natural disaster.

           (b) A major accident beyond the cemetery authority's control and not ultimately found to be the fault of the cemetery authority.

           (c) A delay by the federal government or any of its agencies, or the state or any of its agencies or political subdivisions in granting necessary permits.

           (d) A valid order of any federal or state court of competent jurisdiction that prevents the timely completion of a project.

           (26) "Fraternal cemetery" means a cemetery owned, operated, controlled or managed by any fraternal organization or auxiliary organization thereof, in which the sale of lots, graves, crypts, vaults, or niches is restricted principally to its members.

           (27) "Grave" means a space of ground in a cemetery, used or intended to be used, for burial.

           (28) "Human remains" means the body of a deceased person and includes the body in any stage of decomposition, as well as cremated remains.

           (29) "Interment" means the disposition of human remains by inurnment, scattering, entombment, or burial in a place used or intended to be used, and dedicated, for cemetery purposes.

           (30) "Inurnment" means placing cremated remains in an urn or other suitable container and placing it in a niche, crypt, or vault in a place used or intended to be used, and dedicated, for cemetery purposes.

           (31) "Lawn crypts" means space for interment in preplaced chambers, or burial vaults, either side by side or multiple depth, covered by earth or sod and known also as below-ground crypts, Westminister crypts, or turf top crypts.

           (32) "Lot" or "plot" means land in a cemetery used or intended to be used for the interment of human remains within a grave, mausoleum, lawn crypt, or columbarium.

           (33) “Mausoleum” or “tomb” means a structure or building for the entombment of human remains in crypts or vaults in a place used or intended to be used, and dedicated, for cemetery purposes.

           (34) "Municipal cemetery" means a cemetery owned, operated, controlled or managed by a municipality or other political subdivision of the state, or instrumentality thereof authorized by law to own, operate, or manage a cemetery.

           (35) "Niche" means a space in a columbarium used or intended to be used for inurnment of cremated human remains.

           (36) "Owner" means a person to whom the cemetery authority has transferred full title to or the right of use of or interment in any cemetery space and who appears as the title holder in the official records of the cemetery authority.

           (37) "Perpetual care cemetery" or "endowed care cemetery" means a cemetery wherein lots and other interment spaces are sold or transferred under the representation that the cemetery will receive perpetual or endowed care.

           (38) "Person" means an individual, corporation, limited liability company, partnership, joint venture, association, trust, or any other legal entity.

           (39) "Privately owned cemetery" means any cemetery except a fraternal, municipal, or religious cemetery or a family burial ground.

           (40) “Rearrangement” or “reuse” means the act of removing and disposing of a previously interred casket and the gathering and placing of human remains in an alternative container within the same cemetery space in order to accommodate additional interments.

           (41) "Religious cemetery" means a cemetery that is owned, operated, controlled or managed by a recognized church, religious society, association or denomination, or by a cemetery authority or a corporation administering or through which is administered the temporalities of any recognized church, religious society, association or denomination.

           (42) "Sale" means the sale of the full title to any cemetery space or the sale of the right of use of or interment in any cemetery space.

           (43) "Temporary receiving vault" means a cemetery space used or intended to be used for the temporary placement of human remains.

           (44) "Trustee" means the separate legal entity designated as trustee of a cemetery care fund.

           Acts 1974, No. 417, §1. Amended by Acts 1980, No. 428, §1; Acts 1997, No. 921, §1; Acts 1999, No. 1199, §1; Acts 2001, No. 468, §1; Acts 2003, No. 1243, §1; Acts 2006, No. 609, §1; Acts 2010, No. 63, §1, eff. August 15, 2010; Acts 2015, No. 270, §1, eff. July 1, 2015; Acts 2022, No. 574, §1, eff. August 1, 2022; Acts 2023, No. 20, §1, eff. August 1, 2023.