Abbey v. Castille

• Decision Date: 21 July 2011
• Docket Number: Civil Action No. 10–2717.
• Citation: 835 F.Supp.2d 149
• Parties: ST. JOSEPH ABBEY, et al. v. Paul “Wes” CASTILLE, et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Louisiana

835 F.Supp.2d 149

ST. JOSEPH ABBEY, et al.

v.Paul “Wes” CASTILLE, et al.

Civil Action No. 10–2717.

United States District Court, E.D. Louisiana.

July 21, 2011.

Held Unconstitutional

LSA–R.S. § 37:831(37, 41).

Unconstitutional as Applied

LSA–R.S. § 37:842(A), (B), (C).

F. Evans Schmidt, Koch & Schmidt, LLC, New Orleans, LA, Darpana M. Sheth, Jeff Rowes, Scott Bullock, William H. Mellor, Arlington, VA, for St. Joseph Abbey, Mark Coudrain.

Michael H. Rasch, George Brian Recile, Preston Lee Hayes, Chehardy, Sherman, Ellis, Murray, Recile, Griffith, Stakelum & Hayes, Metairie, LA, for Paul “Wes” Castille, Belva M. Pichon, Craig G. Gill, Andrew Hayes, Wall V. McKneely, Margaret Shehee, Kelly Rush Williams, Louis Charbonnet, Patrick H. Sanders.

FINDINGS OF FACT AND CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

STANWOOD R. DUVAL, JR., District Judge.

This matter came to trial on June 6, 2011. Before the Court was the issue of whether it is unconstitutional to require those persons who intend solely to manufacture and sell caskets be subject to the licensing requirements for funeral directors and funeral establishments. After considering all testimony and evidence presented at trial and the relevant law, the Court finds that this requirement is in contravention of the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution. There is no rational basis for the State of Louisiana to require persons who seek to enter into the retailing of caskets to undergo the training and expense necessary to comply with these rules. Simply put there is nothing in the licensing procedures that bestows any benefit to the public in the context of the retail sale of caskets. The license has no bearing on the manufacturing and sale of coffins. It appears that the sole reason for these laws is the economic protection of the funeral industry which reason the Court has previously found not to be a valid government interest standing alone to provide a constitutionally valid reason for these provisions.

The rationale for these findings follows herein. To the extent a finding of fact constitutes a conclusion of law, the Court adopts it as such. To the extent a conclusion of law constitutes a finding of fact, the Court adopts it as such.

Procedural Background

As this Court has previously noted, St. Joseph Abbey and Mark Coudrain (Plaintiffs) filed the instant suit against Paul “Wes” Castille, Oscar A. Rollins, Belva M. Pichon, Craig G. Gill, Andrew Hayes, Wall V. McKneely, Margaret Shehee, Kelly Rush Williams, and Louis Charbonnet, in their official capacities as members of the Louisiana State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors (Defendants or EFD Board). Plaintiffs seek declaratory and injunctive relief pursuant to the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution; the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 42 U.S.C. § 1983; and the Declaratory Judgment Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2201. (Complaint, ¶ 1). At the heart of the dispute is the desire of Benedictine monks of Saint Joseph Abbey to sell wooden caskets without the threat of prosecution or fines.

Plaintiffs seek declaratory relief against the enforcement of Louisiana's Embalming and Funeral Directors Act, La. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§ 37:831–:885 (“the Act”), and the practices and policies of the EFD Board which deny Plaintiffs the ability to sell caskets at retail prices to the public without being licensed as required under the Act. It is undisputed that Mark Coudrain (“Coudrain”) is an ordained deacon of the Archdiocese of New Orleans and is employed at the Abbey as the director of both the Christian Life Center and Saint Joseph Woodworks which entity seeks to hand-make and sell monastic caskets to the general public. He is not a licensed funeral director under Louisiana Law.

Plaintiffs contend that Louisiana's funeral-licensing laws and regulations violate Plaintiffs' constitutional rights to Due Process in that:

74. Louisiana's Funeral-licensing laws and regulations violate Plaintiffs' right to due process of the law under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and 42 U.S.C. § 1983 on their face and as-applied to the extent that Louisiana law requires individuals to be licensed funeral directors merely to engage in the retail sale of caskets, to the extent that Louisiana law requires entities to be licensed funeral establishments to engage in the retail sale of caskets, and to the extent that Louisiana law requires the free storage of purchased caskets to comply with the requirements of a “pre-need” funeral-services contract.¹

(Complaint, ¶ 74). And with respect to the violation of the Equal Protection Clause, Plaintiffs allege:

77. By requiring the sellers of simple wooden caskets to comply with an arbitrary and irrelevant licensing scheme that is not rationally related to any legitimate public health and safety concerns, but is instead designed for another profession, Defendants, their agents, and employees are treating two distinct and different occupations as the same and therefore violate the rights of Plaintiffs to equal protection of laws as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

(Complaint, ¶ 77).²

These allegations arise from the terms of the Act under which it is unlawful for anyone to conduct the business of funeral directing or to engage in the business of funeral directing as defined in La. Rev. Stat. 37:831 unless such business is conducted by a duly licensed funeral establishment. La. Rev. Stat. 37:848(A) and (C). “Funeral directing” is defined in relevant part as “the operation of a funeral home, or, by way of illustration and not limitation, any service whatsoever connected with the management of funerals, or the supervision of hearses or funeral cars, the purchase of caskets or other funeral merchandise, and retail sale and display thereof, ....” La. Rev. Stat. 37:831(35) (emphasis added). “Funeral establishment” is defined as “any place or premises duly licensed by the board and devoted to or used in the care and preparation for burial of the body of a deceased person or maintained or held out to the public by advertising or otherwise as the office or place for the practice of funeral directing.” La. Rev. Stat. 37:831(37).

Prior to trial, Plaintiffs filed a Motion for Preliminary Injunction and Defendants filed a Motion to Dismiss Pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6). On April 8, 2011, the Court issued its Order and Reasons denying Defendants' motion and setting the Motion for Preliminary Injunction for hearing at the time of trial on the permanent injunction. (Rec. Doc. 59). Defendants moved for dismissal based on the legal issue of whether protecting a discrete interest group from economic competition constitutes a sufficient legitimate government purpose such that Plaintiffs failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted under the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the FourteenthAmendment. Defendants argued that such protection is recognized as a sufficient legitimate government interest under the rational-basis test. Powers v. Harris, 379 F.3d 1208, 1215 (10th Cir.2004). The Court rejected this approach finding that economic protectionism standing alone does not provide a per se rational basis to pass constitutional muster.

In doing so this Court, adopted the approach taken by the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Craigmiles v. Giles, 312 F.3d 220 (6th Cir.2002). The Louisiana statute was not subject to “strict scrutiny” because it does not regulate a fundamental right or distinguish between people on the basis of suspect characteristics. St. Joseph Abbey v. Castille, 2011 WL 1361425, *4 (E.D.La. April 8, 2011). Likewise, the “intermediate scrutiny” approach as outlined in J.E.B. v. Alabama, 511 U.S. 127, 114 S.Ct. 1419, 128 L.Ed.2d 89 (1994) was inapplicable because the subject statute does not concern classifications such as gender and illegitimacy which are considered less “suspect.” Thus, the Court in its ruling on the motion to dismiss found that Plaintiffs' allegations concerning the Act were found to be subject to a “rational basis” review which requires “only that the regulation bear some rational relation to a legitimate state interest. St. Joseph Abbey at *4 citing Craigmiles, 312 F.3d at 223 citing Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620, 632, 116 S.Ct. 1620, 134 L.Ed.2d 855 (1996).³

Craigmiles noted that “[c]ourts repeatedly recognized the protecting of a discrete interest group from economic competition is not a legitimate governmental purpose.” Craigmiles, 312 F.3d at 224 citing City of Philadelphia v. New Jersey, 437 U.S. 617, 624, 98 S.Ct. 2531, 57 L.Ed.2d 475 (1978) (“Thus, where simple economic protectionism is effected by state legislation, a virtually per se rule of invalidity has been erected.”) See also H.P. Hood & Sons, Inc. v. Du Mond, 336 U.S. 525, 537–38, 69 S.Ct. 657, 93 L.Ed. 865 (1949); Energy Reserves Group, Inc. v. Kansas Power & Light Co., 459 U.S. 400, 411, 103 S.Ct. 697, 74 L.Ed.2d 569 (1983) (distinguishing between legitimate state purposes and “providing a benefit to special interest”). Thus, the Court must now determine whether there is any rational government interest served by the Act as applied to Plaintiffs.

Finding of Facts

Saint Joseph Abbey is a Catholic monastery of 38 monks located in Covington, Louisiana. (Trial Transcript, at 14–15) (“T. T.”) Plaintiff Mark Coudrain is a deacon of the Catholic Church and employee of the Abbey. (T.T. at 25). For generations, the monks constructed simple wooden caskets to bury their dead. (T.T. 17). After two bishops utilized these simple coffins, public interest in the coffins grew. That factor combined with the loss of the Abbey's timberlands as a result of Hurricane Katrina (which timberlands it had harvested for income) led Abbot Justin Brown to believe that the construction and sale of caskets would be a good source of revenue for the Abbey. (Trial Trans. at 17).

The Abbey invested $200,000 in “Saint Joseph Woodworks.”...