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Cross-cutting force · the stakeholder map

The Rosebrough Monument Rules

The antitrust case law stemming from Rosebrough Monument Co. v. Memorial Park Cemetery Association is read in opposite directions by two segments — which is why it lives here rather than in either. For cemetery operators it preserves a legitimate revenue stream: a cemetery may require its own staff to perform foundation preparation, provided it does not charge discriminatory fees between in-house and outside purchases. For monument dealers it is a restraint on that same power: no inspection, survey, or flagging fees, and no required in-house installation supervision absent documented cause.

Federal enforcement is not self-executing — it depends on dealer litigation or FTC complaint, so smaller dealers without legal resources can absorb treatment that is already illegal. Michigan does not rely on the case law alone, and that is a stronger position than the federal route for any operator in this state: MCL 456.538 (verified on the ledger) makes a purchase-from-us-only memorial rule a disciplinable offense with an administrative fine of up to $5,000 per violation, while expressly preserving consistent quality and installation rules. The remedy moves from a litigation budget to a letter.

Every segment it reaches — and how it runs for each

Where this force splits its own allies

Collision

Who controls the foundation

The sides
Favored: cemetery operators, who retain the foundation-preparation revenue the rules permit. Harmed: monument dealers, who bear the fees the rules restrict.
In dispute
A narrow band: whether a specific fee is legitimate cost recovery or a discriminatory charge that exists to make an outside monument uneconomic. Both sides accept the same rules and disagree about where a given fee falls within them.
Not in dispute
The rule itself. Neither side is asking to change it — the fight is over enforcement, which is not self-executing federally.
What it means for a coalition
The collision most directly implicating this platform's owner — which is why the disclosure sits at the top of this page. It is also the most tractable: because the disagreement is about application rather than the rule, publishing the rule accurately serves both sides, and in Michigan the dealers' remedy is a complaint to the commissioner (MCL 456.538), not a lawsuit.

Renders on both sides’ pages: Cemetery operators · Monument and headstone dealers