A Move to Ease Death’s Sting

After an eleven-year fight, the FTC curbs undertakers

More than two decades have passed since Jessica Mitford, in her 1963 exposé The American Way of Death, attacked the U.S. funeral industry as a “grotesque cloud-cuckoo-land where the trappings of Gracious Living are transformed, as in a nightmare, into the trappings of Gracious Dying.” Mitford accused morticians of inflating funeral costs by foisting upon grieving customers such frills as high-fashion gravewear for the body and ornate caskets equipped with comfortable innerspring mattresses. Though the book stirred public indignation and helped lead to numerous investigations of the funeral business, it was not until last week that the U.S. Government finally took action to ease death’s sting to the pocketbook.

After an eleven-year fight with the funeral industry that dragged through Congress and the courts, the Federal Trade Commission put into effect regulations that require undertakers to give customers detailed price information, even over the telephone. The new rules also prohibit morticians from misleading people into thinking that some services, like embalming, are always required by law.

Funeral directors must give potential customers an itemized price list of all products and services, from the casket to the cosmetics used on the corpse. Up to now, many morticians have offered only one-price package deals that automatically included things that the customer might not want, such as flowers, embalming, body deodorants or an engraved casket name plate. Says Marcia Goldberg, executive director of the Continental Association of Funeral and Memorial Societies: “I’ve come across cases in which funeral parlors have tried to charge for putting new pantyhose on the body.”

The FTC thinks that giving customers the option of rejecting extras will help reduce funeral costs. The average price is about $2,400 and can go much higher. At the Ritter Funeral Home in Milwaukee, the prices range from $580 for a cardboard casket and transport for immediate burial to $6,995 for a full-service funeral with the top-of-the-line bronze casket.

Some funeral directors say that expensive coffins will prevent a body from decaying or that bodies must be in caskets before they can be cremated. The new rules forbid such misleading claims. In addition, morticians must notify customers that embalming is not legally required in most circumstances. Many funeral directors embalm routinely. In one instance a truck driver was burned beyond recognition in an Illinois crash. Nonetheless, the funeral home charged his family for embalming and cosmetology.

Such cases are rare, say funeral industry officials, who argue that their business has been regulated tightly enough at the state level. They contend that itemized funeral price lists, which are required in some states, are already common throughout the U.S. Says David Bohardt, executive director of the National Funeral Directors Association: “What the Government has done is taken the world’s largest sledgehammer to kill the smallest ant on record.”

The FTC began investigating funeral directors in 1972 and, after lengthy public hearings, proposed regulations in 1979. But Congress, influenced by a $1.5 million lobbying effort by the industry, asked the FTC to reconsider its action and hold more hearings. After Congress finally accepted new rules in 1982, the funeral directors fought them in court. The battle climaxed in January when the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond ruled in favor of the FTC.

The industry decided not to appeal to the Supreme Court. Says Bohardt: “You reach a point where you have to, with some grace, say you’re not going to win this one.” The funeral industry’s customers, who face difficult decisions at a time of deep sorrow, should be the ultimate winners.

— By Charles P. Alexander. Reported by Christopher Redman/Washington