Judge Orders Body Released Father’s Burial Delayed Six Weeks In Dispute Over Bill

Six weeks after his death, an 83-year-old man’s body was ordered released from cold storage at Coffelt’s Funeral Service.

Kootenai County Magistrate Barry Watson ruled Friday that the funeral home must turn the body of Albert Atkinson over to his son, Leon Atkinson, for burial. The body had been held since the day after his Aug. 27 death.

Dale Coffelt, the funeral home’s owner and Bonner County coroner, refused to release the elder Atkinson’s body until the son agreed to pay costs totaling $1,785, including a $780 mandatory minimum fee. Leon Atkinson’s lawyer, Tevis Hull, filed a lawsuit Sept. 22 to have the father’s body released upon payment of $450. Atkinson said he planned to bury his father on his own Bonner County property, and that he had paid about $1,000 in cash for a concrete vault for the burial.

Last week Atkinson won a temporary restraining order to stop Bonner County from burying his father’s body at taxpayers’ expense. The county had previously declared Albert Atkinson indigent so it could remove the body from the mortuary freezer and pay for its burial.

After listening to testimony Friday, Watson said he found no wrongdoing by Coffelt or Atkinson. He said Idaho law is vague on whether a funeral home may hold a body in lieu of payment.

But Watson dismissed Atkinson’s request for damages and attorney’s fees.

Attorney John Topp, representing Bonner County, said it remained undecided whether the county would pay the funeral home’s bill. He argued against releasing the body until that decision was made.