G406, 10, economic regulation
Coffins textbook
CAREERIST: Life in the agency
POLITICIAN: Use the agency to advance to somewhere else (maybe another agency)
PROFESSIONAL: Loyalty to the profession's standards
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PUBLIC INTEREST THEORY: Maximize value
CAPTURE THEORY : help the regulated industry
ECONOMIC THEORY OF REGULATION: balance of political forces, internal motivations
By separating the purchase of caskets from the purchase of funeral services, Memorial Concepts can offer substantial savings, not to mention a shopping environment free of hovering morticians.
But in Oklahoma, which allows caskets to be sold only by licensed funeral directors, such competition is illegal.
Qualifying as a funeral director in Oklahoma requires two years of college courses, graduation from a mortuary science program, a one-year apprenticeship that includes the embalming of at least 25 bodies, and two exams.
After all that, the applicant is deemed qualified to sell boxes.
The state also mandates that caskets be sold from a "funeral establishment" that includes a "preparation room" for embalming, a "selection room" for displaying casket options, and "adequate areas for public viewing of dead human remains."
Kim Powers and Dennis Bridges, the founders of Memorial Concepts, are fighting to overturn Oklahoma's casket cartel, arguing that it violates their rights to due process, equal protection, and economic liberty under the 14th Amendment. Last August the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit rejected their arguments. . .
... the court ruled that even if the whole point of the regulations was to protect funeral homes from competition, that would be OK.
To survive a challenge under the 14th Amendment's Due Process and Equal Protection clauses, a regulation has to be "rationally related to a legitimate government purpose."
But if, as the 10th Circuit ruled, "intrastate economic protectionism constitutes a legitimate state interest," there's little doubt that Oklahoma's restrictions on casket sales satisfy this test.
"While baseball may be the national pastime of the citizenry," the court wrote, "dishing out special economic benefits to certain in-state industries remains the favored pastime of state and local governments."
Since the 10th Circuit's ruling conflicts with a 2002 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit that overturned similar restrictions on casket sales in Tennessee, there's a good chance the Supreme Court will intervene.