St. Joseph Abbey v. Paul Castille

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that “naked economic preferences are impermissible to the extent that they harm consumers.”
• noting that “the great deference due state economic regulation does not demand judicial blindness to the history of a challenged rule or the context of its adoption nor does it require courts to accept nonsensical explanations for regulation”
• striking down anticompetitive law restricting the sale of funeral merchandise to state-licensed funeral directors in challenge by Benedictine monks wanting to sell handcrafted pine coffins
• addressing state’s alternative argument, that challenged restrictions on casket sales were rationally related to protection of public health, safety, and consumer welfare, after rejecting economic protectionism as legitimate governmental interest
• rejecting the argument that “exclusivity will assure purchasers of caskets informed counsel” as “third-party 22 No. 86123-9-I/23 sellers do not have the same incentive as funeral home sellers to engage in deceptive sales tactics” meaning the law actually put consumers “at a greater risk.”
• “[N]either precedent nor broader principles suggest that mere economic protection of a particular industry is a legitimate governmental pur- pose … .”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).