Abstract
Washington’s disposition-of-remains statute, RCW 68.50.160, is designed to honor a decedent’s expressed wishes regarding the control and disposition of their body after death. Yet recent litigation reveals a critical gap between the statute’s intent-centered design and its practical enforceability. In Larotonda v. Blackburn, a trial court acknowledged that irreparable harm would occur if a decedent’s burial wishes were ignored but nonetheless denied relief on the grounds that the individual designated to carry out those wishes lacked standing. The result was a legal paradox: a statute that recognizes decedent autonomy in theory but withholds any meaningful mechanism for its enforcement in practice.
This Comment argues that Larotonda exposes two interrelated failures in Washington law. First, the trial court misinterpreted RCW 68.50.160 by transforming a statutory safe harbor for written authorization into an exclusive formal requirement, contrary to settled principles of statutory interpretation. Second, restrictive standing doctrine compounded that error by treating the decedent’s chosen representative as a legal stranger, effectively silencing the decedent’s final wishes. These failures fall with particular force on transgender individuals and others who rely on chosen family relationships rather than formal marital or biological ties.
Using Larotonda v. Blackburn as a case study, this Comment advances a two-pronged solution. It urges appellate courts to enforce RCW 68.50.160 according to its plain terms, restoring the statute’s intent-first design. It further proposes targeted legislative reform to clarify standing and enforcement mechanisms, ensuring that written expressions of intent—whether formal or informal—and chosen family relationships are meaningfully enforceable. Absent such reform, Washington law risks continuing to recognize decedent autonomy only in principle, not in practice.
Recommended Citation
Wyatt Young, Who Decides the Dead? Interpreting Washington’s Disposition of Remains Statute, 49 SEATTLE U. L. REV. 1397 (2026).
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