“Burial Battle” looms as casket company sues Oklahoma State Funeral Board

February 24, 2026/Business, Products, Regulations/

For a period of time it was unknown to the owners of Caskets of Honor, located in Calvin, Oklahoma, that selling caskets in their home state was illegal without the procurement of a funeral director’s license. Then, according to this recent story from KFOR-TV of Oklahoma City, the husband and wife ownership team of Caskets of Honor was visited by a member of the state funeral board and fined $4,000 for the illegal activity.

The couple, Todd Collard and Candi Mentink have tried to get the law changed but, at least until now, to no avail. That’s what has prompted the recent lawsuit against the state funeral board. Collard and Mentink bring in caskets from a wholesaler and then design motifs, or customize, the caskets per the request of family members. Mentink says this of their products, “We don’t plan the funeral. We just talk to the family to see what they want for the design.”

According to the article and news report they sell their completed caskets in all of the continental United States except Oklahoma . . . .where they are located.

According to the KFOR article the attorney for the Institute of Justice, Matt Liles, made this statement about the recently filed case, “You shouldn’t need a license to sell a box. Licensing exists to protect the public, not to stifle honest competition.”

Here is the KFOR – TV News Report on this subject:

Here’s the Caskets of Honor website

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take: I stumbled upon this article shortly after writing an article last week about New York City’s Green-Wood Cemetery announcing that they will be beginning the disposition process of Natural Organic Reduction (NOR) for consumers. In researching that article I noticed a couple of, at least to me, strange regulations about NOR in the state of New York.

First of all, I noticed that only non-profits could operate NOR facilities in New York. I also noticed that the “soil remains” of the NOR process appear to be required to stay within the confines of where the NOR disposition process occured.

Funeral Director Daily also published this article titled “Indiana Court: Death doula does not need a funeral director’s license” last September after a ruling from that state.

Different states having different regulations and laws is a result of Thomas Jefferson’s influence on the country as he argued, in almost all instances, for a de-centralized government in sharp contrast to Alexander Hamilton’s argument for a strong central government for all regulations.

I’m a “Jeffersonian” in legal thought and I think it is okay that different states have different rules and regulations. Those rules and regulations are set by the population closest to where they have to live by those rules. However, over time customs and protocols change and these regulations must be looked at to see if they are still relevent in today’s world.

Like this “Oklahoma law requiring licensure to sell caskets”, there are probably lots of funeral and cemetery regulations that are no longer relevent to today’s world. State funeral boards should really look at their state laws and regulations and work with legislatures to bring them up to date.

In the Funeral Director Daily article from September 2025 linked above I made the following comments and they are probably just as appropriate for this article:

I’m of the opinion that “Death Care Decisions” are sub-consciously divided into three categories by the average consumer. Again, it is my opinion that services and prices would be easier understood by the consumer, requiring less third-party intervention, if they were arranged in packages of these types:

Disposition of the Body (Traditional Burial, Green Burial, Cremation, Alkaline Hydrolysis, Natural Organic Reduction, etc)

Services/Celebrations (Private or public visitation, church service, other memorial service, luncheons, receptions, etc)

Memorialization (Cemetery, monuments, entombments, Better Place Forest, scattering, Parting Stone, Cremation Jewelry, etc)

And, I think the Federal Trade Commission should move in this direction with the note to consumers that the “Disposition of the Body” portion requires a licensed funeral director involvement. The other components (Services/Celebrations/Memorialization) may or may not require the services of a licensed funeral director — dependent on the choice made.

Until the Death Care profession can get consumers to easily understand the services and prices that we offer, the traditional death care providers are simply asking for more competition by Death Doulas, Funeral Concierges, and the like who will offer these “helping hand” services to confused consumers.

Related — This is the website for “Death Done Differently”, the subject of the Indiana death doula lawsuit.

Related — Here is an article featuring the topic of a current bill introduced into the Georgia Senate to remove “Embalming” licensure as a requirement to Funeral Director licensure.

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