Chap. 24.—An ACT to amend and re-enact Section 1569 of the Code of Virginia,
as heretofore amended, relating to the duties of undertakers, and to the removal,
transportation and burial of bodies of dead persons, and to repeal Section 1728
of the Code of Virginia, relating to the transportation of the bodies of dead
persons. [S B 21]

Approved February 9, 1940

1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia, That
section fifteen hundred and sixty-nine of the Code of Virginia, as
heretofore amended, be amended and re-enacted so as to read as
follows:

Section 1569. Duties of Undertaker.—The undertaker, or person
acting as undertaker, shall be responsible for obtaining and filing
the certificate of death with the local registrar of the district in which
the death occurs, and for securing a burial-transit permit, prior to
any disposition of the body, except as otherwise provided in this
chapter. He shall obtain the personal and statistical particulars
required from the person best qualified to supply them, giving the
name and address of his informant. He shall then present the certi-
ficate to the attendant physician, if any, or to the health officer or
coroner, as directed by the local registrar, for the medical certificate
of the cause of death and other particulars necessary to complete the
record as specified in the two preceding sections. He shall then state
the facts required relative to the date and place of burial, over his
signature and with his address, and present the completed certificate
to the local registrar in order to obtain a permit for burial, removal,
transportation, or other disposition of the body. The undertaker
shall deliver the burial-transit permit to the sexton, or other person
in charge of the place of burial, before interring or otherwise disposing
of the body. When shipped by a transportation company, said per-
mit shall accompany the corpse to its desired destination and shall
be delivered to the sexton or other person in charge of the place of
burial.

The burial-transit permit forms shall be prepared by the State
Department of Health, and shall be interchangeable with similar
transit-burial permits in use by any other state or the District of
Columbia, and shall be acceptable by any sexton of a cemetery as
authorization for burial, except that in cities with full-time health
departments it shall be subject to the ordinanace of such city.

The State Department of Health shall also prepare disinterment-
transportation-reinterment permit forms which shall be used for a
transportation permit and be acceptable by the sexton of a cemetery
in the same manner as a burial-transit permit. After reinterment of
the remains, the disinterment-transportation-reinterment permit shall
be properly endorsed and forwarded to the Virginia Bureau of Vital
Statistics, Richmond, Virginia, to be filed in connection with the
corresponding death certificate.

Any dealer, carpenter, or other person who shall sell a coffin for
the burial of a dead person, shall deliver to the purchaser a certificate
of death filled out as completely as possible, and instruct the pur-
chaser to supply any omitted information, either statistical or medical,
and to deliver said certificate to the local registrar of the district in
which the death occurred and obtain from the said registrar a burial-
transit permit before interment, removal, or other disposition of said
body is made.

If for good reason the doctor’s or coroner’s certificate of death, or
that of the person acting as coroner, cannot be obtained, the purchaser
or person acting as undertaker shall file with the local registrar a
provisional certificate of death, upon which the registrar shall issue a
burial-transit permit on condition that a completed certificate of
death will be filed within ten days with the registrar of the district
in which the death occurred.

Each dealer, carpenter, or other person selling coffins shall furnish
the State Registrar at the end of each month a list of sales for the
month of coffins in cases in which death certificates have not been
filed with the local registrar. This list must include the names and
addresses of the purchasers, names, color, age, and sex of deceased,
and dates of deaths.

2. Be it further enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia,
That section seventeen hundred and twenty-eight of the Code of
Virginia be, and it is hereby, repealed.