The state Court of Appeals has ruled that a New Mexico family can't sue an out-of-state funeral home for placing a relative's brain in a casket before shipping an embalmed body to New Mexico.
The family, whose identity isn't revealed in the damage lawsuit, discovered the brain after smelling a "foul odor" a day after a New Mexico funeral home gave it to them in a bag containing the personal effects of a woman killed in a 2009 automobile accident in Utah. The brain was in a separate plastic bag labeled with the word "brain."
The court ruled Wednesday that Serenicare Funeral Home in Draper, Utah didn't have enough contact with New Mexico for it to be sued in this state. The family has filed a separate lawsuit in Utah.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.