England v. Louisiana State Bd. of Medical Examiners

• Decision Date: 19 December 1960
• Docket Number: No. 5143,5143
• Citation: 126 So.2d 51
• Parties: Jerry R. ENGLAND et al. v. LOUISIANA STATE BOARD OF MEDICAL EXAMINERS et al.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Louisiana — District of US

Page 51

126 So.2d 51

Jerry R. ENGLAND et al. v. LOUISIANA STATE BOARD OF MEDICAL EXAMINERS et al.

No. 5143.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, First Circuit.

Dec. 19, 1960.

Rehearing Denied Jan. 30, 1961.

Certiorari Denied Feb. 15, 1961.

J. Minos Simon, Lafayette, Floyd J. Reed, New Orleans, Russell Morton Brown, Washington, D.C., for appellants.

Adams & Reese, Ellis, Lancaster & King, Robt. E. LeCorgne Jr., Phelps, Dunbar, Marks, Claverie & Sims, Blake West, Philip E. Henderson, New Orleans, for appellees.

Before ELLIS, LOTTINGER, JONES, HERGET and LANDRY, JJ.

HERGET, Judge.

An action for declaratory judgment and injunction was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana by plaintiffs-appellants seeking to have declared unconstitutional the requirements as a prerequisite of the State of Louisiana for the practice of their profession, chiropractic, that they have diplomas from colleges approved by the American Medical Association and further seeking to have declared illegal the requirement that knowledge of surgery and materia medica bear a reasonable relation to chiropractic. Plaintiffs appealed from the judgment of the United States District Court dismissing their complaint and in the case entitled England et al. v. Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners et al., 259 F.2d 626, the United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, with Judges Rives and Brown concurring and Judge Wisdom dissenting, reversed the decision and remanded same with directions. An application for a rehearing was made by appellees and in the case of England et al. v. Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners et al., 5 Cir., 263 F.2d 661, a petition for rehearing was denied with Judge Wisdom dissenting.

Upon remand of the case before a three judge court of the Eastern District Composed of Judges Jones, Christenberry and Wright, that Court, on January 5, 1960, 180 F.Supp. 121, 124, entered an order '* * * staying further proceedings in this Court until the courts of the State of Louisiana shall have been afforded an opportunity to determine the issues here presented, and retaining jurisdiction to take such steps as may be necessary for the just disposition of the litigation should anything prevent a prompt state court determination.'

Following the order of the United States District Court, plaintiffs, appellants herein, filed in the Nineteenth Judicial District Court this action for a declaratory judgment against the Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners seeking a preliminary injunction restraining and prohibiting the defendants, Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners, Rhett McMahon, President thereof, and Edwin Lawson, Secretary thereof, and its agents, servants and employees or successors in office, from denying or depriving plaintiffs or any of them their rights and privileges as citizens of the United States and of the State of Louisiana, or the equal protection of laws secured to them by the Constitution and Laws of the United States or their civil rights, on the sole basis or classification of chiropractors, or otherwise, or from making any other distinction as to them because they are chiropractors or from enforcing or executing the provisions of LSA-R.S. 37:1261 et seq., or from instituting or maintaining all actions at law or in equity, civil or criminal, now pending in any of the courts of the State of Louisiana and heretofore commenced by them or from commencing the same hereafter against plaintiffs under or pursuant to the terms and conditions of the Statute complained of in these proceedings and further enjoining them from taking any further or any other actions, civil or criminal, in any court in pursuance of said Statute, in connection with the enjoyment and exercise of the rights, privileges and immunities of plaintiffs anent their professional skills and capacities or opportunities and privileges.

A petition of intervention was filed on behalf of Louisiana State Medical Society.

After the submission of the case on the application for a preliminary injunction, stipulation was entered into by and between counsel for plaintiffs and defendants that the case be submitted to the Court on the merits for a permanent injunction upon the same evidence introduced on the preliminary injunction, and there was judgment thereon dismissing the suit of plaintiffs at their costs. It is from this judgment that plaintiffs have appealed to this Court.

In the decision of the Fifth Circuit, 259 F.2d 626, at page 627, supra, the Court said:

'We are not called on at this time to say whether chiropractors should be admitted to practice in Louisiana, but the question is whether they are entitled to an opportunity to prove that the State's denial of their claimed right to practice an Allegedly useful profession is so arbitrary and unreasonable as to amount to a denial of due process or of the equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment. It is certainly true that the State is not bound to recognize every peculiar theory or school of medicine. Without doubt it is reasonable for the state to outlaw witch doctors, voodoo queens bee stingers, and various other cults which no reasonably intelligent man would choose for the treatment of his ills, but it would certainly be arbitrary to exclude some, if not all, of the following classes which Louisiana does admit to practice: dentists, osteopaths, nurses, chiropodists, optometrists, pharmacists, and midwives. Just where is the dividing line? Under all of the cases, we think it is that the State cannot deny to any individual the right to exercise a reasonable choice in the method of treatment of his ills, nor the correlative right of practitioners to engage in the practice of a useful profession.' (Italics by the Court.)

It is to be noted that this suit is not by individuals seeking the right to exercise a reasonable choice in the method of treatment of theirs ills but is brought by plaintiffs, chiropractors, seeking the right to engage in the practice of an allegedly useful profession, chiropratic.

On rehearing, 263 F.2d 661, at page 674, supra, the Court said:

'We give full recognition to the State's power to regulate, reasonably and rationally, all facets of the medical field, even to excluding certain professions or specialists or schools by subjecting them to the rigid requirements of medical doctors or by expressly outlawing them. But the State cannot outlaw an allegedly useful and lawful profession without a 'reasonable' or 'rational' basis for so doing. The plaintiffs say no such basis exists and the defendants say it does. We must, upon motion to dismiss (treated as summary judgment), take the plaintiffs' allegations as true. Thus taken, they make out a prima facie case under existing law. That is the limit to our holding.

'Indeed, the burden upon the plaintiffs is great, if not insurmountable. They must show that the Act as administered 'has no rational relation' to the regulation of chiropractic and 'therefore is beyond constitutional bounds.' Williamson v. Lee Optical Company, supra, 348 U.S. 483, 491, 75 S.Ct. 461, 466, 99 L.Ed. 563. For such a determination, it is immaterial whether chiropractic is considered as a school or cult or theory or specialty or profession. That is for the legislature to determine if the plaintiffs prevail in this suit. The petition for rehearing is Denied.'

In his dissenting opinion, Judge Wisdom, 263 F. at page 675, said:

'I cannot see what purpose will be served by giving the plaintiffs a day in court to prove that chiropractic may be a useful profession and that chiropractors are not surgeons. No one denies that chiropractic May be a useful profession. Or that some intelligent persons go to chiropractors' for treatment. Or that chiropractors whose medical activities are restricted by law to adjusting subluxated vertebra by thrusting movements of the hands have no need for a knowledge of surgery and materia medica. To give the plaintiffs a day in Court for the purpose of proving these undisputed facts is to decide the case now for the plaintiffs. It amounts to holding the Louisiana Medical Practice Act arbitrary, unreasonable, and unconstitutional on its face.' (Italics by the Court)

In the case of Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners v. Beatty et al., 220 La. 1, 55 So.2d 761 the Supreme Court of this State had before it the resolution of every contention made by the plaintiffs herein and that Court determined adversely the contentions herein. It being therein judicially decreed that the defendants, chiropractors, were practicing medicine within the meaning of the Medical Practice Act; that the Medical Practice Act is constitutional; that the exemption of certain classes or persons such as osteopaths and dentists from the provisions of the law did not result in an unreasonable discrimination and did not affect the constitutionality of the act because it did not exempt chiropractors; that the provision of the Medical Practice Act that a person present to the Board of Medical Examiners a diploma from a college in good standing and that the Medical Board determine what is or what is not a college in good standing did not render the statute unconstitutional; and that the Medical Practice Act is not unconstitutional on the ground that it takes from chiropractors their constitutional right to practice their profession without due process of law. We are in accord with this decision.

In Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners v. Fife et al., 162 La. 681, 111 So. 58, 54 A.L.R. 594, the Supreme Court of our State decreed that a chiropractor was practicing medicine within the intentment of Act 56 of 1914 as...