bottleneckers. Even after getting his store burned to the ground—the perpetrators never identified—Pastor Craigmiles persevered, replacing his lost store with two others in strip malls in different parts of the city.
The funeral bottleneckers were not content, however, with merely defending their license. In 1999, two state legislators associated with the funeral industry sponsored a successful bill to give funeral directors even-greater advantages in selling funeral merchandise. With the support of the Tennessee Funeral Directors Association, Representative Tim Garrett and Senator John Ford, the latter eventually caught in and convicted as a result of an FBI bribery sting,65 pushed through a bill to require a twenty-four-hour waiting period before cremation.66 The law was criticized for the burdens imposed on the bereaved, forcing them to pay for embalming in places where refrigeration for the interim period was not an option and giving funeral directors time to convince families to select more expensive funeral options.67 It was also suggested that the law was put on the legislature’s consent calendar, where bills that are not expected to cause controversy are placed, without discussion.68 It turns out the law was controversial; it provoked a “public outcry,” according to legislators, when people realized what it said.69 The Knoxville News Sentinel called the law “an insult to consumers and a clear favor to special interests.”70 The following year, the law was repealed,71 but an even-bigger blow to the bottleneckers was still to come.
In August 2000, the US District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee ruled in favor of Pastor Craigmiles. In his decision, Judge R. Allan Edgar held that
there is no reason to require someone who sells what is essentially a box (a casket) to undergo the time and expense of training and testing that has nothing to do with the State’s asserted goals of consumer protection and health and safety.72
On August 29, the board convened a special meeting via teleconference to discuss whether to appeal its district court loss, but it was not just members of the state board who attended. Also on the call and participating in the deliberation were the executive director of the Tennessee Funeral Directors Association and three funeral directors. Upon their urging, the board voted unanimously to appeal.73
The following month, the state officially appealed the decision, clinging to its assertion that there were threats to public health and safety posed by unlicensed casket sellers. The Sixth US Circuit Court of Appeals would have none of it, however.74 On December 6, 2002, the court produced the following ruling:
Dedicating two years and thousands of dollars to the education and training required for licensure is undoubtedly a significant barrier to entering the Tennessee casket market. The question before the court is whether requiring those who sell funeral merchandise to be licensed funeral directors bears a rational relationship to any legitimate purpose other than protecting the economic interests of licensed funeral home directors. The weakness of Tennessee’s proffered explanation indicates that the 1972 amendment adding retail sales of funeral merchandise to the definition of funeral direction was nothing more than an attempt to prevent economic competition. Indeed, Tennessee’s justifications for the 1972 amendment come close to striking us with “the force of a five-week old, unrefrigerated dead fish,” a level of pungence almost required to invalidate a statute under rational basis review.75
The court further noted that “even if casket selection has an effect on public health and safety, restricting the retailing of caskets to licensed funeral directors bears no rational relationship to managing that effect.”76 The court concluded that the Tennessee legislature’s “measure to privilege certain businessmen over others at the expense of consumers is not animated by a legitimate governmental purpose.”77 In the face of two strong court rejections, the state board chose not to appeal to the US Supreme Court this time.78
BOARDS OF BOTTLENECKERS
The case of Pastor Craigmiles illustrates how bottleneckers don’t just consist of trade associations looking to maintain the fence around their occupation. They are also made up of government licensing boards ostensibly charged with protecting public welfare but actually functioning as state agents acting on behalf of license holders. This is the result of membership on such boards being dominated by practitioners of the regulated trade, which happens through a process known as “regulatory capture.”79 Having control on these boards not only allows industry representatives to restrict entry into their own occupation by setting up licensing schemes but also gives them state-granted power to punish those operating without a license with fines and jail time, including entrepreneurs like Pastor Craigmiles who merely sell caskets.
Through enforcement, licensing boards police the fences around their occupations so strictly that even nonprofits whose efforts are aligned with their fundraising activities sometimes receive punitive action. In Louisiana, for example, Catholic monks from the Saint Joseph Abbey faced the possibility of a jail term for daring to sell handmade caskets to fund their religious mission. On March 30, 2010, the Louisiana State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors subpoenaed Abbot Justin Brown and Deacon Mark Coudrain of the Saint Joseph Abbey, commanding them to appear before the board and answer allegations under oath about caskets the Abbey had been selling to fund its day-today expenses. If found guilty, they would have faced fines of between $500 and $2,500 for each casket sold and up to 180 days in jail. The subpoena was the culmination of a three-year crusade by the funeral board against the Abbey, which sought only to support itself through the sale of simple handmade wooden caskets, the type Abbey monks had made for their own burials for years.
Saint Joseph Abbey dates back to the late nineteenth century, when it was established by Benedictine monks for the pursuit of a monastic life that included liturgical prayer, the singing of psalms, simple labor, education, and hospitality toward those seeking a contemplative respite from the world. Consistent with the teachings of their namesake, Benedictine monks have for centuries supported themselves through trades including brewing beer, making wine, and farming. At Saint Joseph Abbey, operational funds come from a seminary the monks direct, a retreat center, timber farming, and small enterprises such as a gift shop that features Abbey-made “Monk Soap.”80
In the 1990s, it became clear to Abbey leaders that these income sources were not enough and a new means to support themselves financially was needed. However, any new undertaking had to be in keeping with the monks’ quiet and simple life. In the meantime, attention was increasingly being paid to the caskets that the monks made for themselves and friends of the Abbey. People attending the funerals of prominent Louisiana Catholics buried in Abbey-made caskets began to inquire about buying similar caskets for their loved ones. And so the monks sold a small number of caskets beyond the Abbey. That all changed in 2005, when Hurricane Katrina destroyed the part of the Abbey’s pine timberlands whose harvest had been so profitable.81
With the loss of 60 percent of its adult pine trees, the leaders at the Abbey knew that they would not be able sell timber for twenty years, making critical the need to find alternate sources of funding.82 It was then that Deacon Coudrain approached Abbot Brown with an inspired idea—to make and sell caskets to meet a growing demand. It represented the perfect opportunity: Casket making was a simple occupation that could be performed at the monastery, and selling caskets would enable the monks to share their view of the simplicity and unity of life and death.
The monks prayed, voted on the plan, and eventually expanded their casket-making capacity by investing $200,000 to convert an old cafeteria building on their property into a well-equipped woodshop.83 On November 1, 2007, the monks officially unveiled Saint Joseph Woodworks, which would produce two models of honey-colored caskets, one for $1,500 and another for $2,000, both priced at the lower end of caskets offered at funeral homes84 and each blessed and marked with a medal of Saint Benedict.85
The Clarion Herald, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese
