Montana Code Annotated 2023

TITLE 35. CORPORATIONS, PARTNERSHIPS, AND ASSOCIATIONS

CHAPTER 21. MAUSOLEUM AND COLUMBARIUM AUTHORITIES

Part 8. Mausoleum-Columbarium Authorities

Definitions

35-21-802. Definitions. For the purposes of this part, the following definitions apply:

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

(2) "Cremated remains" means all human remains recovered after the completion of cremation, including pulverization, that leaves only bone fragments that have been reduced to unidentifiable dimensions.

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

(4) "Directors" means the board of directors, board of trustees, or other governing body of a mausoleum-columbarium authority.

(5) "Entombment" means the placement of human remains in a crypt or vault.

(6) "Human remains" or "remains" means the body of a deceased person and includes the body in any stage of decomposition .

(7) "Interment" means the disposition of human remains by cremation and inurnment or entombment in a place used or intended to be used and dedicated for interment purposes.

(8) "Interment space" means any space in a crypt, vault, or niche of sufficient size for the entombment or inurnment of the remains of one human being.

(9) "Inurnment" means placing cremated remains in an urn or other permanent container and placing it in a niche.

(10) "Mausoleum" means a permanent building or outdoor structure suitable for the entombment of human remains in crypts or vaults in a place used or intended to be used and dedicated for interment purposes.

(11) "Mausoleum-columbarium" means a building or structure containing both a mausoleum and a columbarium.

(12) "Mausoleum-columbarium authority" means any corporation, not for profit, owning, controlling, or operating lands, buildings, or structures used or intended to be used and dedicated for interment purposes by entombment or inurnment but does not refer to any corporation, for profit or not for profit, or any association, corporation sole, or other person owning or controlling cemetery lands or property, including mausoleums or columbariums where interment is also made by ground burial.

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

(14) "Plot" or "interment plot" means space in a mausoleum or columbarium used or intended to be used for the interment of human remains. The terms include one or more than one adjoining crypts or vaults or one or more than one adjoining niches.

(15) "Plot owner" or "owner" means a person who is on record as owner of an interment in the office of a mausoleum-columbarium authority.

History: En. Sec. 2, Ch. 283, L. 1999.