1. (a) The commission may, in its discretion, refuse to issue or renew a license or may fine, revoke, or suspend any license granted by the commission, and may probate any license suspension if the commission finds that the applicant or licensee has engaged in unprofessional conduct as defined in this section.

2. (b) For the purpose of this section, unprofessional conduct shall include but not be limited to:

   1. (1) providing funeral goods and services or performing acts of embalming in violation of Texas Civil Statutes, Article 4582b, the adopted rules of the Texas Funeral Service Commission and applicable health and vital statistic laws and rules;
   2. (2) refusing or failing to keep, maintain or furnish any record or information required by law or rule;
   3. (3) operating a funeral establishment in an unsanitary manner;
   4. (4) failing to practice funeral directing or embalming in a manner consistent with the public health or welfare;
   5. (5) obstructing a commission employee in the lawful performance of such employee's duties of enforcing Article 4582b and commission rules or instructions;
   6. (6) copying, retaining, repeating, or transmitting in any manner the questions contained in any examination administered by the commission;
   7. (7) physically abusing or threatening to physically abuse a commission employee during the performance of his lawful duties;
   8. (8) conduct which is willful, flagrant, or shameless or which shows a moral indifference to the standards of the community;

   9. (9) in the practice of funeral directing or embalming, engaging in:

      1. (A) fraud, which means an intentional perversion of truth for the purpose of inducing another in reliance upon it to part with some valuable thing belonging to him, or to surrender a legal right, or to issue a license; a false representation of a matter of fact, whether by words or conduct, by false or misleading allegations, or by concealment of that which should have been disclosed, which deceives or is intended to deceive another;
      2. (B) deceit, which means the assertion, as a fact, of that which is not true by any means whatsoever to deceive or defraud another;
      3. (C) misrepresentation, which means a manifestation by words or other conduct which is a false representation of a matter of fact.

Source Note:The provisions of this §203.24 adopted to be effective February 27, 1996, 21 TexReg 1271.