 The determinative legal issue was deciding on the relevant Kenyan law on burial, whether statute, Common law or Customary law, and who was the next of kin responsible for the funeral rites.Under Kenyan law at that time, a deceased person’s will or the wishes of their spouse were not sufficient to determine a dispute between opposed parties, and several people gave uncorroborated versions of the verbal wishes Otieno was said to have given at various times about his funeral wishes that conflicted with Wambui’s version.The parties differed in terms of class, gender, ethnicity and their relationship to Otieno.