New York Laws
Title 4 - Registration of Deaths: Burial Permits
4142 - Death Certificate; Duties of Funeral Director.

(a) obtain the personal and statistical particulars required for the
certificate of death from a competent person acquainted with the facts
and qualified to supply them and enter them on the certificate together
with the name and address of his informant;
(b) present the certificate promptly to the attending physician or
nurse practitioner, who shall forthwith certify to the facts of death,
provide the medical information required by the certificate and sign the
medical certificate of death, or to the coroner or medical examiner in
those cases where so required by this article or, when a death occurs in
a hospital, except in those cases where certificates are issued by
coroners or medical examiners, to the person in charge of such hospital
or his or her designated representative, who shall obtain the medical
certificate of death as prescribed in section four thousand one hundred
forty-one-a of this title;
(c) state the facts required on the certificate of death relative to
the date and place of burial, cremation or removal, over his signature
and with his address; and,
(d) prior to the disposition of the remains, file the certificate of
death with the registrar of the district in which the death occurred as
provided in section four thousand one hundred forty of this article.
(e) notwithstanding any contrary provisions of law as may be set forth
in this section, commencing on or after the implementation date under
section forty-one hundred forty-eight of this title, information and
signatures required by this subdivision shall be obtained and made in
accordance with section forty-one hundred forty-eight of this title.