## Facts

- Peoples Memorial Cemetery had existed and been used as a cemetery in Petersburg for more than 100 years.
- In 1942, the City of Petersburg acquired an adjoining 1.01-acre tract intended to be used for additional cemetery space as an extension of the existing cemetery.
- Maggie H. Temple and other homeowners lived nearby; the Temple residence was within 250 yards of the tract and about 70 feet away at the nearest point.
- Former Code § 56 prohibited any cemetery from being “hereafter established” within a city’s corporate limits and prohibited establishing a cemetery within 250 yards of a residence without the residence owner’s consent.
- The City sought additional burial space in part to re-inter bodies relocated due to public road improvements.

## Issues

1. Whether adding adjacent land to enlarge a long-existing cemetery constitutes “establish[ing]” a cemetery under former Code § 56, thereby triggering the statute’s distance and city-limit prohibitions without homeowner consent.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia affirmed the trial court’s decree dissolving the temporary injunction and denying equitable relief.
- The court held that the City’s planned use of the tract was an enlargement of an existing cemetery, not the “establishment” of a cemetery within the meaning of Code § 56.
- Because the statute addressed establishment (founding) rather than enlargement, the City’s proposed extension did not violate Code § 56.

## Legal Principles

- When statutory language is plain and unambiguous, courts apply its ordinary meaning and do not rewrite the statute based on policy preferences.
- In ordinary usage, to “establish” a cemetery means to originate, found, or institute it, not to enlarge a cemetery already in existence.
- A statutory ban on cemeteries “hereafter established” within specified limits does not, without more, prohibit expansion of an existing cemetery into adjacent property.

## Conclusion

The court concluded that Code § 56 barred the founding of new cemeteries within city limits and near residences without consent, but it did not bar a municipality from expanding a cemetery that had long been established; therefore, the homeowners were not entitled to an injunction.


Temple v. City of Petersburg, 182 Va. 418, 29 S.E.2d 357 (Va. 1944)