Eric Boehm on a Big Win Against Funeral Home Overregulation

Robert Lawton

Requiring funeral homes to install expensive equipment it will never use is an "irrational policy that serves no legitimate governmental objective," a Minnesota judge says. This past Wednesday, Judge John Guthmann ruled in favor of plaintiffs who were challenging an onerous state law requiring funeral homes to install equipment for embalming dead bodies, even when those funeral homes do not use the equipment. As Eric Boehm writes, the plaintiffs successfully argued that the requirement stifled competition and increased prices for consumers.