A client sat across from me in my Manhattan office recently and, after we’d worked through the structure of a trust for his children, he paused. “I have one more question,” he said, “and it’s a strange one. I want to be cryogenically preserved. Can my will make that happen?”
The question isn’t as strange as it once was. The urban legend about Walt Disney being frozen has been a pop culture fixture for decades. While the story is false—Disney was cremated in 1966—it planted an idea. This raises a practical legal question: What happens when your final wishes involve technology the law has not yet fully addressed? My job is not to judge the feasibility of cryonics. It is to ensure a client’s intentions are documented with such clarity and legal force that they can be executed without ambiguity.
Stewardship. The work is about creating a plan that honors your final wishes—whatever they may be—and protecting your executor from the legal battles that erupt when those wishes are unconventional.
What New York Law Says About Your Final Wishes
Before we can fund a long-term plan like cryopreservation, we must address a more fundamental issue: who has the right to decide what happens to your body? When an unconventional request is made, the potential for family conflict rises dramatically.
New York law provides a clear framework. Under New York Public Health Law § 4201, every competent adult has the right to determine the disposition of their own remains. The law allows you to appoint a specific agent to carry out those wishes in a signed, written document. This is the critical first step. A line in your will is not enough, as a will may not be read until after the preservation has already taken place.
Creating a standalone “Appointment of Agent to Control Disposition of Remains” form is the proper, deliberate way to handle this. In it, you name the person you trust to see your instructions through and, just as importantly, you name alternates. This document gives your chosen agent the legal authority to act, shielding them from challenges by other family members who may disagree. Without this clear designation, the law defaults to a hierarchy of decision-makers—spouse, children, parents—that can lead to disputes in Surrogate’s Court at the worst possible time.
Funding the Future: The Role of a Trust
Cryopreservation isn’t a one-time expense. It involves an initial procedure followed by decades of maintenance fees. A simple bequest in a will cannot handle this kind of ongoing financial obligation. A will is designed to be administered and closed; its purpose is to distribute assets and pay final debts, not manage them for decades.
A trust is essential here. I often work with clients to establish an irrevocable trust specifically for this purpose. We can fund the trust during their lifetime or at their death with enough capital so its investments can generate the income needed to pay the annual maintenance fees. The trust becomes the legal and financial engine for carrying out the client’s long-term wishes.
The trustee of this trust has a fiduciary duty to manage the assets prudently and make the payments as directed. This is not a casual arrangement; it is a legally enforceable obligation. The trust’s terms must be drafted with precision, anticipating contingencies like the cryonics company going out of business or changing its fee structure. The goal is a self-sustaining plan that does not rely on the goodwill of future generations.
The Executor’s Burden and Fiduciary Duty
Imagine being named the executor of an estate and discovering a directive for cryopreservation. Your legal duty is to marshal the decedent’s assets, pay their debts, and distribute the remainder according to the will. You must act in the estate’s best interest and follow the decedent’s lawful instructions.
But what if the instructions are scientifically speculative? Or if they require a significant portion of the estate, reducing the inheritance for beneficiaries who then threaten to sue? A well-drafted plan protects the executor. It clarifies that the funds for preservation are a specific bequest and an expense of the estate, not a discretionary choice.
Pairing a clear disposition of remains document with a properly funded trust removes the burden of interpretation from the executor and trustee. Their job is not to question the wisdom of the decision but to execute the plan as its custodian. This transforms a potentially contentious situation into a straightforward administrative task—the hallmark of intentional estate planning.
The law cannot bring anyone back to life. But it can, and should, provide a clear, enforceable path for honoring a person’s final, deeply held wishes. Whether it’s a traditional burial or a journey into the cryogenic unknown, the principles of prudent planning remain the same: be deliberate, be clear, and build a structure that can withstand future challenges.
If your estate plan includes unconventional wishes, the foundational step is to formally document them. We often begin by drafting a clear instrument under Public Health Law § 4201 to appoint an agent and detail your instructions, ensuring your plan starts on a solid legal footing.
