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397.1005 Evidence of death or status.
In addition to the rules of evidence in courts of general jurisdiction, for the purposes of
KRS 397.1001 to 397.1007 only, the following rules relating to a determination of death
and status shall apply:
(1) Death shall be deemed to occur when the requirements of KRS 446.400 have been
met.
(2) A certified or authenticated copy of a death certificate purporting to be issued by an
official or agency of the place where the death purportedly occurred shall be prima
facie evidence of the fact, place, date, and time of death and the identity of the
decedent.
(3) A certified or authenticated copy of any record or report of a governmental agency,
domestic or foreign, that an individual is missing, detained, dead, or alive shall be
prima facie evidence of the status and of the dates, circumstances, and places
disclosed by the record or report.
(4) In the absence of prima facie evidence of death under subsection (2) or (3) of this
section, the fact of death shall be established by clear and convincing evidence,
including circumstantial evidence.
(5) An individual whose death is not established under subsection (2), (3), or (4) of this
section and who is absent for a continuous period of seven (7) years, during which
the individual has not been heard from, and whose absence is not satisfactorily
explained after diligent search or inquiry, shall be presumed dead. His or her death
shall be presumed to have occurred at the end of the period unless there is sufficient
evidence for determining that death occurred earlier.
(6) In the absence of evidence disputing the time of death stipulated on a document
described in subsection (2) or (3) of this section, a document described in
subsection (2) or (3) of this section that stipulates a time of death one hundred
twenty (120) hours or more after the time of death of another individual, however
the time of death of the other individual is determined, establishes by clear and
convincing evidence that the individual survived the other individual by one
hundred twenty (120) hours.
Effective: July 15, 1998
History: Created 1998 Ky. Acts ch. 415, sec. 5, effective July 15, 1998.
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