1. (1) It shall be unlawful for any public officer or employee, an official of any public institution, any physician or surgeon, or any other person who had a professional relationship with any decedent to send or cause to be sent to any establishment or mortician the remains of any deceased person without having first made due inquiry as to the desires of the decedent as expressed in any prearranged funeral plan as set forth in section 54-1139 , Idaho Code, or of the person authorized to direct disposition of the remains under section 54-1142 , Idaho Code.

   No person licensed under this chapter or anyone acting on behalf of a licensee shall participate in any transaction or business which in any way interferes with the freedom of choice of the general public to choose a mortician or an establishment to perform the burial or disposal of a human body, except where the body or a part thereof is given for anatomical purposes.

   Nothing herein contained shall be construed to govern or limit the authority of any administrator or executor, trustee, or other person having a fiduciary relationship with the deceased.

2. (2) No company, corporation or association engaged in the business of paying, or providing for the payment, of the expenses for mortician services or funeral supplies, or engaged in the business of providing insurance upon the life of any person for the payment of such expenses upon his death, shall pay any such insurance or benefits to any mortician, funeral director, establishment, or other person in any manner which might or could deprive the decedent as expressed in any prearranged funeral plan as set forth in section 54-1139, Idaho Code, or of the person authorized to direct disposition of the remains under section 54-1142, Idaho Code, from directing the method, manner and arrangements for the disposition of the remains.

[54-1118, added 1970, ch. 70, sec. 17, p. 167; am. 1994, ch. 423, sec. 6, p. 1331; am. 2003, ch. 257, sec. 14, p. 675.]