Can I Sue my Brother?
<p>My brother took my mother and stepfathers ashes to his house in Eastern Wa., and gave me none to have for my own keepsakes. I wanted to make a necklace from them. 
That was in 1997, and I've got much more attitude now. Can I sue him for equitable ashes? He paid for her cremation from her bank acct, including some of his own money. Does that entitle him to all the ashes? He was also the executor of our mothers' estate at her request. I was too overwhelmed with grief to be of  any help.</p>

<p>The statute of limitations to make a claim for the ashes from a 1997 cremation (i.e. more than twenty years ago) under pretty much any conceivable legal theory  has expired as of January 2018. You no longer have a timely legal claim and any rights you may have had to the ashes, or any portion of them, is now forfeit. Realistically, it probably would have been untimely to claim them any time after the estate was closed which would have been many, many years ago.</p>

<p>Nothing, however, prevents you from asking your brother nicely if he would share some of the ashes with you, perhaps intimating that your mother and stepfather would have wanted him to do that, and he might cooperate.</p>

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