| Venue: | 6th Circuit |
| Facts: | The Tennessee Funeral Directors and Embalmers Act (FDEA) says you have to be a licensed mortician to sell caskets. The requirements of licensing are non-trivial and mostly unrelated to casket sales. |
| Posture: | District court rules that this is unconstitutional under 14A |
| Issue: | Is there a legitimate rational basis for this regulation, given that protecting the interests of licensed funeral directors is not a legitimate governmental purpose? |
| Holding: | No. Affirmed. |
| Rule: | Protecting a discrete interest group from economic competition is not a legitimate governmental purpose. |
| Reasoning: | Strict scrutiny review is appropriate when a statute regulates fundamental
rights or distinguishes between people based on suspect characteristics.
All other regulations are subject to rational basis review. Even
foolish regulations can survive, as long as there's a rational basis:
there is a strong presumption of valitidy.
But this is just naked protection of economic interests, and it probably even has adverse effects on the quality of caskets. The court won't impose its views about how the economy should function, but it will invalidate legislative attempts to protect a monopoly when there''s no rational basis for doing so. |
| Dicta: | |