Funeral Directors Want To Put Monks In Jail For Offering 'Unauthorized' Coffins
from the the-napster-of-coffins dept
Ah, regulatory capture. Down in Louisiana, there's a law that makes it a crime (yes, a crime) for anyone other than a funeral parlor to sell "funeral merchandise." This rule is enforced by the state's "funeral regulatory board," which (you guessed it) is mostly dominated by funeral parlor industry insiders. Now, a few years back, you may remember, there was a big Hurricane called Katrina. Among the massive damage done to the state of Louisiana, it also knocked down much of a large forest of pine trees on the property of the Benedictine monks at St. Joseph Abbey. With so many downed pine trees, the monks, in a lemons-into-lemonade type of moment, decided to use the downed trees to make hand-crafted caskets.The funeral parlor directors were not amused, at this "unauthorized" competition -- and warned the monks that violating the laws against such unauthorized funeral merchandise could land you in jail for up to 180 days. Yes, the funeral directors were threatening a bunch of monks who were hand-crafting coffins out of pine trees knocked down by Hurricane Katrina with jailtime. After the threat, the monks continued to make caskets, but tried to keep the activity quiet -- and the funeral regulatory board literally sent out investigators to go spy on them to see if they were still selling caskets. After collecting evidence, they hit the monks with a subpoena, and are attempting to fine the monks for selling such caskets. In response, the monks are filing a federal lawsuit, claiming that they were being shut out of the market by a "casket cartel."
It's difficult not to see this as a clear case of regulatory capture. The Louisiana funeral regulatory board has nine members, eight of whom are in the funeral industry. There are even some funeral directors who are willing to admit that the whole thing looks bad, with one telling the Wall Street Journal that "They're making us all look greedy." As for the defense of the law? Well, the funeral directors who support such a restriction on free trade are really reaching:
Boyd Mothe Jr., a member of the fifth generation of his family to run Mothe Funeral Homes outside New Orleans, says Louisiana's law should remain on the books because licensed directors have the training to sell caskets--transactions he calls "complicated." For instance, he says, "a quarter of America is oversized. I don't even know if the monks know how to make an oversized casket."Very convincing, huh?
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Filed Under: coffins, louisiana, monks, regulatory capture
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The lawyer or the client
1) The lawyers tell their clients what an awful idea it would be to move ahead with a lawsuit because of the negative publicity, but the clients move ahead anyway.
2) The lawyer doesn't warn their clients because he knows he'll make more money from the lawsuit in spite of the fact that there's a good possibility that the backlash could remove his client's monopoly.
3) Or is it possible that both parties are so wrapped up in their greed, they actually don't realize that most people can see through their flimsy pretense and view what they're doing as wrong?
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Re: The lawyer or the client
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What kind of monks?
Because if they're Jesuit monks, then God help that regulating committee....
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Re: What kind of monks?
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What type of monks could they be......
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"They're cutting into our profit," says Leonard Dunn, the owner of Serenity Funeral Home, located a short drive from the abbey.
...and has no problem admitting he is terrified of competition.
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It's odd, though, seeing a reference to trees knocked down by a horrific natural disaster and then turned into caskets as being a "lemons-into-lemonade type of moment". More like a lemons-into-sliced lemons type of moment.
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Are the Globalists really getting so fearful that they must 'control' everything?
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I'm with you. They're globalists out for one world government. Why? Becuase when something doesn't fit at all, it must be subterfuge.
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Oversized coffins?
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dont sell them as caskets
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Re: dont sell them as caskets
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They're monks, they understand eternity
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most states
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Guilds all over again
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kiss caskets are illegal haha
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the letter of the law!
There is no law saying you can't sell someone a cuddle, and GIVE them the coffin for free because you're a nice monk....not one of those capitalist ones!
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Better watch out...
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Re: Better watch out...
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Re: Re: Better watch out...
They are monks. Even evil has standards.
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For as long as humans have existed, we have been dying and the final moments that loved ones have with the dead and the burial of the dead was not really complicated. A person died, the surviving family and/or friends might or might not have a wake/viewing, then the dead would be buried. There are still many families, that live around my second home, that still bury their dead family members on their own property(which might be going away soon enough), but even those people have to use a funeral home or casket store to obtain a casket.
Apparently, even after a judge struck down the 1991 law on caskets, which opened up the casket market, in Georgia, to businesses other than funeral homes, Georgia just passed another law that requires stores that sell caskets to apply for a license to sell. Why does one need a license to sell a wooden box? Why does our Federal Government, as well as the various states, protect a market that openly takes advantage of those in a grieving state by marking up the products they sell by 200%, 300%, and higher?
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while the laws were actually a very good thing when they were originally passed, like always someone has to come along and try to use the laws to keep other people out of the business and shore up their own inability to run a business correctly themselves (or keep out someone threatening their profits).
the laws actually arent a bad thing, they are just being used in a bad way in this case. monks, you should apply for a license and LA you should *make damn sure* it gets approved and then everyone can be either dead or happy.
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Re: Re: @24
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did you read what i actually said?
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Seriously, they can't expect people to be so stupid as not to understand how to make things geometrically fit together.
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Not very convincing at all
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Re: Not very convincing at all
Still think it's simple? Of course, you could just make a box and see what happens, but don't expect your local undertaker to carry it. It will be his name across the front of the local press when the deceased's ass falls through the bottom on the way to the grave!
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Re: Re: Not very convincing at all
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Another WTF moment
I don't get it. Its a box, its going in the ground with a dead person inside. Who cares about faulty design? Why does the government even need to think about regulating this market?
And why do I suddenly feel that "funeral merchandise" includes flowers as well, and that florists probably have to pay "funeral tax" to funeral homes so they can sell flowers for funerals.
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Perhaps not so cut & dry
Dead bodies are pumped with all sorts of chemicals. If the containers in which they are stored are not properly constructed and sealed then those chemicals will leach out into the soil. I'm not willing to assume, absent further details, that the monks in question built theirs to the proper spec.
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Re: Perhaps not so cut & dry
The funeral homes refuse to work for their pay. They just want everyone to come to them and hand them a shit ton of cash in a nice tidy bow and never have to lift a finger.
I do have to say about the one funeral home I dealt with in GA, they did us a solid when our son was stillborn. They told us in the initial visit that it would be $100 for the cremation and the urn would be another $200. When we arrived to collect and pay the bill, they told us not to worry about it. Their only stipulation was to let others know about them. Which was fair enough to us.
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Re: Perhaps not so cut & dry
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Not the Real Issue...
Or find the nearest monks that will do it for me. Companies love to capitalize on things that HAVE to happen, like the RMV and death.
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they are not trained!!!
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Business models involving regulatory capture need to die already so that we can attend their funeral.
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Louisiana funeral indusrty
What actually happened here in LA began in the 1970's when wording was struck from statute which allowed for "funeral director or individual acting as such" and the phrase added, "all dead bodies shall be prepared and disposed of by a licensed funeral director".
Soon thereafter, more wording appeared-"only a licensed funeral home may display and sell funeral merchandise at retail" Over the years, the right to bath, cloth, casket and bury your loved one has been eroded to the extent that every consumer in the state of LA must present himself, checkbook in hand to a licensee of the state and be compelled to contractually surrender ownership of personal property(your loved ones remains)to the funeral home.
The only stipulation regarding burial is that commercial cemeteries may require a liner or vault to prevent someone from falling thru a decomposed casket and suing. Also, a proscribed distance from a stream or body of water. Otherwise you can be buried directly in the ground, with no embalming, in a shroud or less, if desired.
Boyd Motte kept a particleboard, flat-top, cloth-covered casket in a side room and would drag it out by its screen door handles and present it to insurance policy holders and claim that it was the casket that went with the policy. When the poor bereaved asked to upgrade the casket, this slimeball funeral pig would VOID the contract and credit them a few hundred dollars toward a full price funeral of thousands.
If you can stand to here more about the death grip of the funeral industry in LA, prompt me. I can go on and on!
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