HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - A dispute between two Pennsylvania funeral home trade groups landed in federal court this week, with one camp claiming the other has an 'incestuous relationship' with the state agency that regulates their industry.
About three dozen funeral directors and companies filed a 114-page legal broadside against the State Board of Funeral Directors in U.S. District Court on Tuesday.
The plaintiffs, including members of the Pennsylvania Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association, said the board has essentially been captured by the 1,100-member Pennsylvania Funeral Directors Association, the largest such group in the state.
The filing revisits a long-standing dispute over efforts to regulate the sale of 'pre-need' services to people who want to plan and pay for their funerals before they die.
It also seeks to invalidate funeral-related laws and regulations the plaintiffs called 'unduly restrictive, overly broad, anticompetitive, discriminatory and constitutionally infirm.'
'It has become widely known in the funeral industry that the state board's interpretation of the Funeral Director Law is directly and frequently related to (the association's) legal position on the issue at hand, a legal position repeatedly driven by greed and quest for an ever larger market share, if not monopoly,' according to the lawsuit.
'Regrettably, over approximately the past two to three decades or so, the State Board has developed an incestuous relationship with PFDA,' the lawsuit states.
The Pennsylvania Funeral Directors Association disputed the suggestion that it wields undue influence over state government.
'You can say the same thing about doctors and lawyers and others,' John Eirkson, the association's executive director, said Thursday. 'Are we any more influential than anyone else? I don't believe so.'
Eirkson said if the current inspection system for funeral homes is ruled to violate constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure -- as the lawsuit claims -- it would put in doubt the viability of similar inspections of hair salons, pharmacies and other regulated businesses.
The plaintiffs allege that current law arbitrarily prohibits serving food in any funeral establishment, requires the presence of full-time supervisors that may not be needed and unfairly restricts who may own a licensed funeral home.
A funeral home owner who dies can leave the business to his wife, but a gay or lesbian owner cannot bequeath it to his or her partner for them to run it, they said.
The plaintiffs' lawyers wrote that their clients 'do not challenge 'marriage' laws. They do, however, challenge laws that permit only married funeral directors and/or funeral directors with offspring to keep their valuable asset in the family.'
They also said a legal requirement that, in nearly all cases, funeral homes must be named after the proprietor was an absurd and illegal infringement on commercial speech.
One of the plaintiffs, Jefferson Memorial Park Inc., hired a licensed funeral director who changed her name to Jefferson in order to comply, the lawsuit said.
The defendants are seven members of the state board; Basil Merenda, commissioner of the Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs; bureau attorney Peter Marks; and C.A.L. Shields, the Department of State's director of enforcement and investigation.
A Pennsylvania Funeral Directors Association lawyer said it may attempt to participate in the lawsuit.
Leslie Amoros, a spokeswoman for the state funeral board, said Thursday she was not familiar with the lawsuit so was not immediately able to comment about it.
Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.