NEW ORLEANS - The battle for New Orleans' famous cemeteries appears dead, with the last of three lawsuits filed by tourism companies rejected by a state appeals court.
The Fourth Circuit ruled against the Association of Cemetery Tour Guides and Companies on Sept. 4 in its last pending lawsuit, which alleged the public has a right to the grounds of St. Louis Cemetery. The ACTGC represents companies hoping to offer tours there, and its efforts in federal court to allege antitrust violations by the Association similarly failed.
Tour guides and companies said they were wrongly prevented from making money showing off St. Louis Cemetery Nos. 1 and 2. Millions of lost dollars each year led to the litigation against New Orleans Archdiocesan Cemeteries.
Before 2015, the St. Louis Cemeteries were open to the public, which allowed guides and companies access to highlight their history and the famous people interred there.
Until 2020, tour guides were still allowed to accompany paying tourists, but that changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Only family members of the interred were allowed.
When St. Louis No. 1 reopened to tourists in 2021, NOAC only allowed Cemetery Tours NOLA, which it contracted with, to perform guides. It also implemented a fixed price to be charged by companies that paid $4,500 per year to operate.
This led first to a federal lawsuit by a company called Witches Brew, which was later replaced as plaintiff by the ACTGC.
A federal judge rejected its call for an injunction on antitrust claims. ACTGC, which represents 76 tour companies, appealed to the federal Fifth Circuit and filed a second lawsuit while it was pending.
The judge hearing that case found ACTGC failed to state claims under the Sherman Act. Again, the plaintiff appealed to the Fifth Circuit, which agreed in January 2023.
So a month later ACTGC tried state court with a theory that NOAC violated the rights of the general public to access public cemeteries. It was shot down by Orleans Parish judge Paulette Irons and the state Fourth Circuit.
The Fourth Circuit says a cemetery owner is only bound to make its land available to relatives and friends of persons buried there, citing two previous rulings.
"The holdings of Humphreys and Vidrine reflect that the sanctity of cemeteries as the final resting place of those interred there and those bonded to those persons by blood and/or the mutual affinity of friendship have a recognized right to visit and care for the graves of the deceased," Judge Rachael Johnson wrote for the three-judge panel.
"Therefore, the right to access or visit derives from a real connection to the deceased, a connection that is not recognized for strangers and acquaintances, although some cemeteries, cemetery authorities and/or cemetery corporations may permit their access."
Of ACTGCs 76 member companies, 13 have relatives buried in the cemeteries and 33 have friends. Because not all companies have those connections, ACTGC lacks standing, the court rules.
"Moreover, for the same reasons that the Association lacks standing to proceed on behalf of its members, it cannot seek relief on behalf of the greater public, who would also not all fall into the categories of family and friends," Johnson wrote.