Blue Hills Cemetery, Inc. v. Board of Registration in Embalming & Funeral Directing

The Legislature has provided that a corporation may engage in the business of funeral directing only if it engages in no other business. G. L. c. 112, § 87. 3 The plaintiffs contend that this restriction violates the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution as well as Part II, c. 1, § 1, art. 4, of the Constitution of the Commonwealth and arts. 1 and 10 of its Declaration of Rights.

Blue Hills Cemetery, Inc., is a Massachusetts corporation operating a cemetery in the town of Braintree. Blue Hills wishes to create a funeral directing…