Massachusetts Statutes

Section 12. (a) The following persons shall make a reasonable search of an individual whom the person reasonably believes to be dead or near death for a document of gift or other information identifying the individual as a donor or as an individual who made a refusal: (1) a law e…

Section 13. (a) A document of gift need not be delivered during the donor's lifetime to be effective. (b) Upon or after an individual's death, a person in possession of a document of gift or a refusal to make an anatomical gift with respect to the individual shall allow examinati…

Section 14. (a) When a hospital refers an individual at or near death to a procurement organization, the organization shall make a reasonable search of the records of the Massachusetts Donor Registry and any other donor registry that it knows exists for the geographical area in w…

Section 15. Each hospital shall enter into agreements or affiliations with procurement organizations for coordination of procurement and use of anatomical gifts.

Section 16. (a) Except as otherwise provided in subsection (b), a person who for valuable consideration, knowingly purchases or sells a part for transplantation or therapy if removal of such part from an individual is intended to occur after the individual's death shall be punish…

Section 17. A person who, in order to obtain a financial gain, intentionally falsifies, forges, conceals, defaces or obliterates a document of gift, an amendment or revocation of a document of gift or a refusal to make a gift shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison …

Section 18. (a) A person who acts in accordance with this chapter or with the applicable anatomical gift law of another state or who attempts in good faith to do so, shall not be liable for the act in a civil action, criminal prosecution or administrative proceeding. Following a …

Section 19. (a) A document of gift shall be valid if executed in accordance with: (1) this chapter; (2) the laws of the state or country where it was executed; or (3) the laws of the state or country where the person making the anatomical gift was domiciled, has a place of reside…

Section 2. As used in this chapter, the following words shall, unless the context requires otherwise, have the following meanings: ''Adult'', an individual who is at least 18 years of age. ''Agent'', an individual who is authorized to make health-care decisions on the principal's…

Section 20. (a) The registry of motor vehicles shall maintain the donor registry as set forth in section 8D of chapter 90 to identify individuals who have authorized an anatomical gift at the time of issuance of drivers' licenses, identification cards or renewals. The registrar m…

Section 21. (a) The chief medical examiner and the district attorneys shall cooperate with procurement organizations to maximize the opportunity to recover anatomical gifts for transplantation, therapy, research or education. (b) The procurement organization authorized to remove …

Section 22. (a) The chief medical examiner shall release to the procurement organization such information as may be necessary to facilitate organ and tissue donation including, but not limited to, the name, contact information and available medical and social history of a deceden…

Section 23. An individual's decision to make a donation of that individual's own organ or tissue after death shall be complied with and shall not require the consent or concurrence of any other individual after the donor's death. In the absence of a revocation or amendment, healt…

Section 24. In applying and construing this chapter, consideration shall be given to the need to promote uniformity of the law with respect to its subject matter among states that have the uniform act or a similar law.

Section 25. Whenever authorized by federal law and as required by this chapter, this chapter shall modify, limit and supersede the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act, 15 U.S.C. § 7001 et seq., except 15 U.S.C. § 7001(a); provided, however, that nothing in t…

Section 3. This chapter shall apply to an anatomical gift or amendment to, revocation of or refusal to make an anatomical gift, whenever made.

Section 4. Subject to section 8, an anatomical gift of a donor's body or part may be made during the life of the donor for the purpose of transplantation, therapy, research or education in the manner provided in section 5 by: (1) the donor, if the donor is an adult or if the dono…

Section 5. (a) A donor may make an anatomical gift: (1) by authorizing a statement or symbol indicating that the donor has made an anatomical gift to be imprinted on the donor's driver's license or identification card; (2) by a will; (3) during a terminal illness or injury of the…

Section 6. (a) Subject to section 8, a donor or other individual authorized to make an anatomical gift under section 4 may amend or revoke an anatomical gift by: (1) a record signed by: (i) the donor; (ii) the other individual; or (iii) subject to subsection (b), another individu…

Section 7. (a) An individual may refuse to make an anatomical gift of the individual's body or part by: (1) a record signed by: (i) the individual; or (ii) subject to subsection (b), another individual acting at the direction of the individual if the individual is physically unab…

Section 8. (a) Except as otherwise provided in subsection (g) and subject to subsection (f), in the absence of an express, contrary indication by the donor, a person other than the donor shall be barred from making, amending or revoking an anatomical gift of a donor's body or par…

Section 9. (a) Subject to subsections (b) and (c) and unless otherwise prohibited by section 7 or 8, an anatomical gift of a decedent's body or part for transplantation, therapy, research or education may be made by any member of any of the following classes of individuals who is…

Section 1. For purposes of this chapter the following words shall, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise, have the following meanings:— ''Burial right'', the right to burial in a grave or lot held by the licensee of the grave or lot; however, the license is not equivalen…

Section 10. Each town shall provide one or more suitable places for the interment of persons dying within its limits.

Section 10A. No municipality shall take over the ownership of an unoccupied grave unless a minimum of seventy-five years has elapsed after issuance of a license for the grave by the municipality or its predecessor in interest; and the municipality cannot locate the license holder…

Section 11. If there is necessity for a new cemetery in a town, or for the enlargement of an existing cemetery in and belonging to a town, and the owner or any person interested in the land needed for either purpose refuses to sell the same, or demands therefor a price which the …

Section 12. The commissioners shall appoint a time and place for a hearing, and shall cause notice thereof and a copy of the petition to be served personally upon the owner, if known, or left at his place of abode, fourteen days at least before the time appointed for the hearing.…

Section 13. The commissioners shall hear the parties at the time and place appointed or at an adjournment thereof, shall adjudicate upon the necessity of such taking, upon the quantity and boundaries of any land adjudged necessary to be taken, and may take in fee under chapter se…

Section 14. Each commissioner shall be paid by the town three dollars a day for each day spent in acting under the petition, and five cents a mile for travel to and from the place of hearing.

Section 15. Towns may appropriate money for enclosing any cemetery lawfully provided by them or for constructing paths and avenues and embellishing the grounds therein, and may establish all necessary rules relative thereto consistent with law. They may lay out such cemetery into…

Section 16. Any town may annually appropriate and raise by taxation such sums as may be necessary to care for and keep in good order and to protect by proper fences any or all burial grounds within the town in which ten or more bodies are interred and which are not properly cared…

Section 17. A town shall not alienate or appropriate to any other use than that of a burial ground, any tract of land which has been for more than one hundred years used as a burial place; and no portion of such burial ground shall be taken for public use without special authorit…

Section 18. Any town having within its limits an abandoned or neglected burying ground may take charge of the same and keep it in good order, and may appropriate money therefor, but no property rights shall be violated and no body shall be disinterred. No fence, tomb, monument or…

Section 19. A city or town may receive, hold and apply any funds, money or securities deposited with the treasurer thereof for the preservation, care, improvement or embellishment of any public or private burial place situated therein, or of burial lots situated in such burial pl…

Section 1A. Five or more persons desirous of procuring, establishing and preparing a cemetery, or who are the majority in interest of the proprietors of an existing cemetery, may organize as a corporation, not for profit, in the manner provided in chapter 179; provided, however, …

Section 1B. A person who serves as director, officer or trustee of a nonprofit cemetery qualified as a tax exempt organization under section 501(c) of the Internal Revenue Code and who is not compensated for those services shall not be liable for an act or omission resulting in d…

Section 2. (a) Such corporation: (1) shall be subject to chapter 155 and sections 1 to 13, inclusive, of chapter 179; (2) may take and hold only so much real and personal property as may be necessary for the objects of its organization; (3) may lay out such real property into lot…

Section 20. Money declared by written instrument to be intended for perpetual care, maintenance, improvement or embellishment of any cemetery, or of any lots or plots therein, to an amount not less than two hundred dollars, may be deposited with the state treasurer, who shall rec…

Section 21. The state treasurer shall invest such money in the name of the commonwealth, in bonds or other obligations of the commonwealth or in securities in which he is authorized to invest money in behalf of the commonwealth; and, on the first days of February and August in ea…

Section 22. A town which accepts this and the four following sections or has accepted corresponding provisions of earlier laws may, at any town meeting, elect by ballot a board of cemetery commissioners consisting of three persons. If such board is first chosen at a meeting other…

Section 23. Said board shall have the sole care, superintendence and management of all public burial grounds in its town, may lay out any existing public burial grounds in its town or any land purchased and set apart by said town for such cemeteries, in lots or other suitable sub…

Section 24. Said board may, by deed made and executed in such manner and form as it may prescribe, convey to any person the sole and exclusive right of burial in any lot in such cemeteries and of erecting tombs, cenotaphs and other monuments or structures thereon upon such terms …

Section 25. A town in which cemetery commissioners are chosen may receive gifts or bequests for maintaining cemeteries or cemetery lots, which shall be paid into the town treasury and, with the accounts thereof, shall be kept separate from the other money and accounts of said tow…

Section 26. Said board shall not incur debts or liabilities for purposes other than aforesaid nor to an amount exceeding the amount of the funds subject to their order, and it shall annually make a written report to said town of its official acts, of the condition of such cemeter…

Section 27. If a town so votes under section twenty-one of chapter forty-one the selectmen shall appoint a board of cemetery commissioners to consist of three members, to be appointed for the term of three years. The commissioners shall, under the supervision and control of the s…

Section 28. The owner of any right, title or interest in or to a lot, tomb or monument in any cemetery owned or controlled by any company or association or by any town, may convey or devise the same to such company, association or municipality in trust for the purpose of its pres…