People v. Ringe

• Decision Date: 04 January 1910
• Citation: 90 N.E. 451,197 N.Y. 143
• Parties: PEOPLE v. RINGE.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

197 N.Y. 143

90 N.E. 451

PEOPLE

v.RINGE.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Jan. 4, 1910.

Appeal from Supreme Court, Apellate Division, Second Department.

William A. Ringe was convicted of engaging in the business of an undertaker without having obtained a license, as required by Laws 1905, p. 1267, c. 572, and the people appeal from an order of the Appellate Division reversing the judgment of conviction (125 App. Div. 592,110 N. Y. Supp. 74). Affirmed.Peter P. Smith, for the People.

W. H. Kinnear, for intervener New York State Undertakers' Association.

Leopold Leo, for respondent.

CHASE, J.

The defendant was brought before the Court of Special Sessions, Second division, city of New York, upon an information charging him with the crime of violating chapter 572, p. 1267, Laws 1905, committed as follows: ‘The said William Ringe on the 2d day of September, 1907, at the borough of Brooklyn of the city of New York, in the county of Kings, did unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly engage in and carry on the business of an undertaker at the premises No. 459 Seventh avenue, without first having obtained a license to carry on said business as required by law.’ He was tried before said court, and duly found guilty of the crime as charged in the information, and judgment of conviction was entered against him. An appeal was taken from said judgment to the Appellate Division, where the judgment of conviction was reversed. The order of reversal states that it is granted ‘for errors of law, and not for errors or questions of fact, or as a matter of discretion.’ This appeal is taken from such order of reversal. The only question presented for our consideration is the constitutionality of that part of section 6a, c. 572, p. 1268, Laws 1905 (now section 295 of the Public Health Law [Consol. Laws, c. 45]), which required the defendant to obtain a license as therein provided, before engaging in the business of undertaking.

The act of 1905, so far as material, is as follows: ‘From and after the passage of this act (May 19, 1905) a person not already engaged in the business of undertaking shall not engage in such business unless he shall have been duly licensed as an embalmer and shall have been employed as an assistant to a licensed undertaker continuously for a period of at least three years. Such person shall make an application to the said board of embalmers' examiners for a license to engage in the business of undertaking. * * * If a firm or corporation shall desire to engage in the business or practice of undertaking, each member of the firm or the manager of each place of business conducted by the corporation shall be a licensed undertaker. * * *’ The care of dead human bodies, and the burial or other disposition of them, together with the conduct of the funeral and burial services, has for a great length of time constituted a well-known vocation, and a person who engages in such vocation is commonly known as an undertaker. Any person may freely engage in such vocation unless prevented by some statute constitutionally enacted. The fourteenth amendment of the federal Constitution provides that no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction, the equal protection of the law. The state Constitution provides that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law (article 1, § 6), nor of the rights or privileges secured by any citizen thereof, unless by the law of the land or the judgment of his peers. Article 1, § 1. Power and authority exist, however, in the Legislature to license and regulate certain vocations, notwithstanding the provisions of the federal and state Constitutions, but such power and authority are dependent upon a reasonable necessityfor its exercise to protect the health, morals, or general welfare of the state.

The care of dead human bodies, and the disposition of them by burial or otherwise, is so closely related to the health and general welfare of a community that the business of caring for and disposing of such bodies may be regulated by license and special regulations under the general police power of the state. The danger that may arise from the body of a person who has died from some infectious, contagious, and communicable disease or otherwise is to some extent obviated by the sanitary regulations of local boards of health; but regulations relating to the transportation of dead bodies, permits for burials in the locality where the person has died, and in the compilation of vital statistics are quite inadequate to protect the health and general welfare of a community, unless the person who comes into immediate contact with the dead body, and upon whose care and skill the public are principally dependent in preventing the spread of infection or contagion and protecting the health, good order, and general welfare of a community, is selected with special reference to his skill, knowledge, and experience. The opportunity which undertakers frequently have to aid in covering up or uncovering the evidences of crime also constitutes a reason why they should be selected with reference to their character and integrity.

The statute requiring that embalmers must be licensed does not exhaust the power of the state in exercising its police power in connection with the disposition of dead human bodies. Embalming of dead bodies is done for reasons having special reference to their preservation. The principal reasons for licensing embalmers and regulating the practice of embalming is apparent in the statute which requires embalmers to apply certain tests, as directed, to determine whether life is extinct before injecting any fluid into a body, and to observe the sanitary precautions necessary in connection with the special work of embalming. There is no general statutory provision requiring that a dead human body shall be embalmed, and it is a matter of common knowledge that all dead human bodies are not embalmed. It is not the state or local boards of health that usualy come into personal contact with dead bodies. The work of the embalmer, in many instances, where the time for the burial or other disposition of the body is postponed, or it is to be transported from one town to another, is important, but the duties of boards of health and of embalmers are not necessarily sufficient...