Louisiana funeral directors want ruling that allows St. Joseph Abbey monks to sell caskets

The Louisiana Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn federal district and appeals court rulings that allow the St. Joseph Abbey monks to sell their hand-crafted caskets from their St. Tammany Parish monastery near Covington. In a 37-page petition filed Wednesday, the funeral directors said the high court should step in because federal appeals courts have issued different rulings on "economic protectionism."

The filing includes more than 100 pages of supplemental materials, including copies of previous court filings and state definitions of embalming funeral directors.

In a March 20 ruling, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a Louisiana law that limits casket sales to licensed funeral directors at state-licensed funeral homes. The U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a similar law limiting casket sales in Oklahoma in 2004.

The monks' lawyers previously said the U.S. Supreme Court likely would weigh in on the divided opinion, if the Louisiana board decided to appeal. The monks' response to the Supreme Court filing is due next month, and the Institute for Justice said the monks would not dispute that the "circuit split" exists. The Institute for Justice, based in Virginia, is representing the monks in this case.

"They are prepared to go to the Supreme Court to vindicate their constitutional rights and the right of every American to earn an honest living," the group said in a statement.

The state funeral directors and the St. Joseph Abbey monks have been at legal odds since 2007, when the St. Joseph Abbey established St. Joseph's Woodworks to make and sell caskets to the general public to generate revenue to pay for the medical and educational needs of more than 30 Benedictine monks.

The Louisiana Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors sent the monks a cease-and-desist

The Louisiana Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors has the casket business sown up and they don't want any competition.

Maybe they just want an even playing field.

What kind of taxes, property, sales and income do the St. Joseph monks pay?

What does it cost to provide training which the secular embalmers are required to bear while the monks gain a competitive advantage by not paying for the training and perhaps by not paying taxes?

Are we looking at too many government regulations which are unnecessary, hence the monks do not need training? Are we looking at too many government regulations which are designed to protect existing businesses, in this case the secular embalmers from competition? Are these unnecessary barriers to entry?

We just don't know what the facts are here.

Bizarre. These caskets are cheaper and made by the monks and are much better (they’re “greener,” too).

The burial industry sux, in my opinion. They take advantage of people at their worst moment.

Once upon a time, the parish priest simply called the undertaker and people were buried either in shrouds or in simple boxes, with or without a marker. In Spanish territories such as St Augustine, FL or New Orleans, they had a fairly short lease on the grave and then the bones were put in an ossuary or in the wall of the cemetery, particularly if this was also the wall of the churchyard.

I’ve always thought it interesting that as Protestantism took over and belief in either Purgatory (praying for the dead) or the bodily Resurrection declined, average middle-class people spent more and more money on elaborate coffins and funerary monuments. The European royals had always done this, but that was because it was all about their lineage.

What kind of taxes, property, sales and income do the St. Joseph monks pay?

Why should the taxes that someone pays be an indication of legitimacy? That's an Obama argument.

What does it cost to provide training which the secular embalmers are required to bear while the monks gain a competitive advantage by not paying for the training and perhaps by not paying taxes?

Taxes again? Simply remove this impediment altogether. And while we're at it, what's the purpose of embalming? Everything I've read leads me to believe that simple refrigeration and a timely burial is more desirable for reasons ranging from cost to environmental damage.

Are we looking at too many government regulations which are unnecessary, hence the monks do not need training?

Yes.

Are we looking at too many government regulations which are designed to protect existing businesses, in this case the secular embalmers from competition? Are these unnecessary barriers to entry?

Yes.

We just don't know what the facts are here.

I'll take common sense and less government (read: taxes) over your need for 'facts' any day.

You gentlemen are probably unaware of litigation which to my knowledge extends back at least to the 1950s in various states in the funeral and cemetery industries in which people who build tombstones sue people who own cemeteries to prevent them from selling tombstones because cemeteries enjoy tax advantages. If I don't have to pay taxes and I'm competing with you in the sale of widgets I have an unfair advantage.

If you want to take a libertarian position and deplore all taxes, I will join you on the ramparts but in the meantime there is such a thing as a level playing field. If we permit everyone who wraps himself in a sheet and calls himself swami to engage in commerce free of taxes we soon will have a general breakdown.

Perhaps you are better informed than I am, perhaps you are in possession of the facts and can explain the tax situation of the monks, if not, perhaps a bit of humility might be in order.

The problem in your scenarios is precisely that the government is picking winners and losers; the solution is not to tax both, it is to tax neither. Because after the government makes its choice, we find that the market likes to pick winners and loser as well, and happens to be better at it. Maybe the consumers find it more convenient to buy at one place or the other, or one does better work than the other. Yet one has an advantage at the cash register, because the other is arbitrarily taxed.

I know of a company that put it's own satellites up in space to collect and sell weather data; the government saw how profitable this was, and put up competing satellites. Is that a just and fair use of government?

The tombstone example that you offer is not about tax breaks, per se, it is about favoring one producer over another, and giving the favored producer a leg up. The sattelite example is about government competing in the private sector. But they're different sides of the same coin-- the government is skewing the market.

For further examples of this, look no further than the price supports on corn (feed, or the more sinister ethanol), sugar, beets, peanuts, beef, milk... the list is endless. The government (you, and me) is making up the difference between what the market will pay and what the producer needs to make to stay in business. Do you understand the absurdity? The government is taking tax money out of your pocket and giving it to a profit-losing scheme, and forcing you to pay higher prices to boot! Tell you what: If you really want to get your blood going, take a few weeks off work and read the farm bill.

But this favoritism doesn't just piss off consumers and put honest people out of work, it makes waves in the economy that are felt in far flung places.

Example: Detroit. Government favoritism of unions' outrageous work rules gutted not just a few manufacturers, not just a single industry, but an entire American metropolis. The wave then extended to parts suppliers, dealers (recall Obama picking the winners), repair facilities... again, the list is endless.

A breakdown? On the contrary, we will have an explosion of productivity.

It is not just a Libertarian position to deplore needless taxation; I would suggest to you that, as we're seeing with Obama's IRS dirty tricks, more Americans think there's too much government. It's becoming clear that the 2012 election was stolen due to the suppression of anti-Obama groups.

But wait, there's more. Government has a constant need to justify itself in a snake-eating-its-tail endless loop.

Get this: In the state that I live in, you need a license (that is, revocable permission and payment of a fee) to open a nail salon or a hair salon (barbershop), and pretty much any other revenue-generating enterprise. Why? Wouldn't the marketplace put a bad haircut shop out of business?

You need that license because the fee (tax) justifies enforcement, which justifies fines, which justifies penalties and arbitration, which justifies administration, which justifies bureaucracy. Which all adds up to graft, corruption and patronage. Then, we hope, collapse.

Perhaps you are better informed than I am, perhaps you are in possession of the facts and can explain the tax situation of the monks, if not, perhaps a bit of humility might be in order.

The 'tax situation of the monks' is that a group of people have chosen to pursue life, liberty, and happiness, and the government sees fit to interfere. My advice to the monks would be to drop the nonprofit status, so that they don't answer to the IRS as to their beliefs (which is what determines tax treatment, as we've seen). I say that not because I believe in it, but because I don't believe the IRS is capable of integrity.

But if you're in favor of taxing them, I'd respectfully suggest that you're on the wrong forum.

Are we looking at too many government regulations which are unnecessary, hence the monks do not need training?

Are we looking at too many government regulations which are designed to protect existing businesses, in this case the secular embalmers from competition? Are these unnecessary barriers to entry?

I know you are not unaware of these statements I made in my original post because you quoted them, but did you actually read them?

It is unnecessary and presumptuous of you to lecture me as though concepts were original with you when I had raised the very same issues in my original post.

I have read paragraph after paragraph of your indignation about taxes (much of which I share as I pointed out in my second post) but as long as those of us who inhabit this mortal coil have failed to find a way to avoid either death or taxes, a free-market means we have to have a level playing field.

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