Monks sold coffins without a licence, and beat the rule by pricing what it protected

the problem

A state rule let only licensed funeral homes sell caskets, in a state that does not require a casket for burial at all

background

what everyone would do

Comply or lobby: get a funeral director's licence, or partner with a licensed funeral home to retail the caskets, or petition the legislature for a carve-out for religious and handmade caskets — all of which accept the premise that selling a wooden box is an activity the licence legitimately covers.

what they saw

The monks did not argue the licence was unfair. They showed Louisiana regulated nothing about caskets, required none for burial, and let anyone build or import one — leaving the rule no public purpose, only an industry.

the move

The Abbey sued for a declaratory judgment rather than seeking a licence, and the case turned on what the licensing rule was actually for. The State Board argued that confining casket sales to funeral homes was rationally related to regulating the funeral profession, and — citing the Tenth Circuit's decision in Powers v. Harris — argued in the alternative that protecting an established industry is itself a legitimate state interest. What sank the first argument was the surrounding law. As the Fifth Circuit set out, Louisiana does not regulate the use of a casket or other enclosure for burial, sets no requirements for how a casket is built or designed, does not require that caskets be sealed, lets individuals build their own, lets them buy from out-of-state sellers over the internet — and does not require that a person be buried in a casket at all. A rule that leaves every one of those things unregulated cannot be defending the public from unsafe caskets; the only thing it reliably does is keep the sale inside the licensed trade. The district court, after a bench trial, entered judgment for the Abbey, and on 20 March 2013 the Fifth Circuit affirmed, holding that the economic protection of a discrete interest group is not by itself a legitimate state interest under rational-basis review. That put the circuit in direct conflict with the Tenth. The Supreme Court denied certiorari later that year, leaving the split standing and the monks free to sell.

why it works

Rational-basis review is famously easy for a state to satisfy, so an attack on the rule's fairness or on its cost to the challenger goes nowhere. What the Abbey did instead was make the state's own regulatory silence the evidence: every neighbouring question a genuine safety rationale would have to address — construction, sealing, whether a casket is needed at all, whether one may be homemade or imported — was left entirely unregulated. That pattern is very hard to explain by any purpose except protecting the licensed trade, and once protection is the only surviving explanation, the state has to defend protectionism itself as a legitimate end. That is a much weaker position than defending a safety rule, and it is the one the Fifth Circuit rejected.

the payoff

The Fifth Circuit affirmed for the Abbey in 2013, holding that shielding an industry from competition is not a legitimate state interest.

where it breaks

This only works where the regulator's inconsistency is real and documentable; a licensing scheme that does regulate the underlying hazard coherently will survive, and rational-basis review will accept a fairly thin justification if one genuinely exists. The result is also jurisdictional rather than general — the Tenth Circuit had already held the opposite in Powers v. Harris, the Supreme Court declined to resolve the conflict, and a business in the wrong circuit gains nothing from this reasoning. And litigation of this kind takes years and a funded public-interest firm; the Abbey's income problem was not solved by the judgment that eventually arrived.

what came after

The ruling became the leading citation for the proposition that naked economic protectionism fails rational-basis review, is taught alongside the contrary Tenth Circuit rule as a live circuit split, and is a standard reference in the wider argument over occupational licensing — the Federal Trade Commission had filed an amicus brief noting that restraints on third-party casket sales do not serve the consumer interests its own Funeral Rule protects.

references

1. [1]St. Joseph Abbey v. Castille, No. 11-30756 (5th Cir., 20 March 2013)US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, 2013ca5.uscourts.gov
2. [2]Amicus curiae brief of the Federal Trade Commission in St. Joseph Abbey v. CastilleUS Federal Trade Commission, 2011ftc.gov
3. [3]The Fifth Circuit Lays Economic Protectionism to Rest in St. Joseph AbbeyBoston College Law Review, 2014bclawreview.bc.edu

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