State v. Vandersluis

• Decision Date: 30 November 1889
• Citation: 42 Minn. 129,43 N.W. 789
• Parties: STATE v VANDERSLUIS.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

42 Minn. 129

43 N.W. 789

STATEvVANDERSLUIS.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Nov. 30, 1889.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Chapter 19, Laws 1889, entitled “An act to regulate the practice of dentistry in the state of Minnesota,” is constitutional.

Appeal from municipal court of St. Paul; BURR, Judge.

Davis, Kellogg & Severance, for appellant.

Moses E. Clapp, Atty. Gen., J. J. Egan, Co. Atty., and M. D. Munn, Asst. Co. Atty., for the State.

GILFILLAN, C. J.

That the legislature may prescribe such reasonable conditions upon the right to practice medicine or law as will exclude from the practice those who are unfitted for it, is so well settled by decisions of the courts as to be no longer an open question. The power rests on the right to protect the public against the injurious consequences likely to result from allowing persons to practice those professions who do not possess the special qualifications essential to enable the practitioner to practice the profession with safety to those who employ him. The same reasons apply with equal force to the profession of dentistry, which is but a branch of the medical profession. That, in the exercise of that power, the legislature may require, as a condition of the right to practice that the person shall procure a license; may designate some officer or board to issue the license, and to determine whether an applicant possesses the qualifications required to entitle him to it; and may prescribe, so far as can be done by a general law, what qualifications shall be required, and how the possession of them by the applicant shall be ascertained,-necessarily follows from the power itself. It is for the legislature, and not for the courts, to determine those things. The only limit to the legislative power in prescribing conditions to the right to practice in a profession is that they shall be reasonable. Whether they are reasonable,-that is, whether the legislature has gone beyond the proper limits of its power,-the courts must judge. By the term “reasonable” we do not mean expedient, nor do we mean that the conditions must be such as the court would impose if it were called on to prescribe what should be the conditions. They are to be deemed reasonable where, although perhaps not the wisest and best that might be adopted, they are fit and appropriate to the end in view, to-wit, the protection of the public, and are manifestly adopted in good faith for that purpose. If a condition should be clearly arbitrary and capricious; if no reason with reference to the end in view could be assigned for it; and, especially, if it appeared that it must have been adopted for some other purpose,-such for instance, as to favor or benefit some persons or class of persons,-it certainly would not be reasonable, and would be beyond the power of the legislature to impose.

In 1885 the legislature passed an act to regulate the practice of dentistry. Chapter 199, Laws 1885. This act continued in force until it was superseded and repealed by chapter 19, Laws 1889. The latter act is assailed as unconstitutional. Though the act of 1885 is not called in question, we think it well to refer to some of its provisions. Section 1 made it unlawful for any person not at the passage of the act engaged in the practice of dentistry in the state to commence such practice without a certificate as in the act provided. Section 5 provided for the certificate, which was to be issued by the board of examiners provided for in the act, upon a satisfactory examination. Section 4 made it the duty of every person at the time engaged in the practice of dentistry in the state to, within six months after the passage of the act, cause his name and residence or place of business to be registered with the board, in a book to be kept by it for that purpose, and provided that every person so registered as a practitioner of dentistry might continue to practice as such. Chapter 19, Laws 1889, § 1, provides that from and after September 1, 1889, it shall be unlawful for any person to practice dentistry in the state, unless he shall first have obtained a certificate of registration, and filed the same, or a certified copy thereof, with the clerk of the district court of the county of his residence, as in the act afterwards provided. Sections 2 and 3 provide for a board of examiners. Section 4 makes it the duty of the board to transfer to a register to be kept by it for that purpose, within 10 days after the second Tuesday in July, 1889, the name, residence, and place of business of each and every person who on the second Wednesday in July, 1889, pursuant to the act of 1885, shall be qualified to practice dentistry in the state, and who shall then be duly registered on the books of the board created by the act of 1885, and makes it the duty of the board to send to each of such persons a certificate of his registration. It will be seen from these various provisions that those qualified to practice dentistry under the law of 1885 continued to be so qualified under the act of 1889, including both those who were in practice at the date of the former act, and registered as it required, and those who became qualified by the examination and certificate provided by it.

Section 5 of the act of 1889, the provisions of which furnish one of the grounds on which appellant assails the act as unconstitutional, provides that any person who shall desire to begin the practice of dentistry in the state after September 1, 1889, shall make application for examination to the board of examiners, paying a fee of $10, and shall undergo an examination. The section further enacts: “In order to be eligible for such examination, such person shall present...