Boggs v. Virginia State Bd. of Dental Examiners
| Decision Date | 23 April 1973 |
| Citation | 213 Va. 751,196 S.E.2d 81 |
| Parties | Dr. G. Vernon BOGGS v. VIRGINIA STATE BOARD OF DENTAL EXAMINERS. |
| Court | Virginia Supreme Court |
John R. Bushey, Jr., Luray, for plaintiff in error.
T. J. Markow, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Andrew P. Miller, Atty. Gen., on brief), for defendant in error.
Before SNEAD, C.J., and I'ANSON, CARRICO, HARRISON, COCHRAN, HARMAN and POFF, JJ.
The Virginia State Board of Dental Examiners (Board) found Dr. G. Vernon Boggs guilty of employing and assisting unlicensed persons to perform dental operations upon human beings in violation of Code §§ 54--187(6), 54--188. 1 His license to practice dentistry was revoked for five years; however, all but six months of the revocation was suspended on certain conditions. Dr. Boggs appealed from the Board's order to the Circuit Court of Page County. The trial court heard evidence Ore tenus and by order entered April 13, 1972, found that Dr. Boggs had violated the statutes charged, and it sustained the disciplinary action of the Board. Dr. Boggs exercised his right of appeal to this Court, and we granted him a writ of error and supersedeas.
Dr. Boggs contends (1) that the evidence was insufficient to support a finding that he was guilty of the offense charged, and (2) that the circuit court denied him a trial De novo as was provided by Code § 54--193 2 in refusing to admit evidence in mitigation of punishment.
The record shows that Dr. Boggs is licensed to practice dentistry in the Commonwealth of Virginia and that his office is located in Luray, Page County. At the hearing before the trial court, the Board presented four of Dr. Boggs' former patients who had secured dentures from him and who had testified at the hearing before the Board. In essence, they testified that before receiving their dentures, female employees in Dr. Boggs' office placed a soft, white or gray substance into their mouths to make a dental impression. The Board introduced evidence which established that no female dentist had registered her license in the clerk's office of the Circuit Court of Page County, as required by law in order to practice dentistry in the county. The Executive Secretary of the Board said that his records show no female dentists practicing in Luray, and a local dentist testified that he did not know of any female dentists practicing there.
The trial court refused to permit Dr. Boggs to produce evidence in mitigation of punishment, and he did not testify at the trial.
Persons practicing dentistry are required to be licensed by the Board. Code § 54--168. Code § 54--187(6) empowers the Board to revoke or suspend the license of a dentist who employs unlicensed persons to perform work that can only be legally done by licensed dentists, and § 54--188 empowered the Board to revoke the license of a dentist who aided or assisted an ulicensed person in performing dental operations upon human beings. Code § 54--146 enumerates acts that constitute the practice of dentistry. Included therein is the taking of 'impressions.'
Dr. Boggs argues that 'impressions' is a term of art to the dental profession which refers only to the functional impression made in a reddish brown wax substance from which dentures are fabricated. He says that the impressions described by the witnesses did not fall within the statutory meaning because such impressions were used only to determine the size, shape and design of a patient's mouth before making a functional impression. We are unconvinced by this argument. The statute does not define or qualify 'impressions.' In Webster's New International Dictionary (2d ed. 1948) an impression is defined as '(a)n imprint of the surfaces of the teeth and adjacent portions of the jaw.' Regardless of what substance was used in making imprints of the patients' months, and for whatever purpose they were used by the dentist, they were impressions' within the meaning of the statute.
We hold that the evidence was clearly sufficient to support a finding that unlicensed persons employed by Dr. Boggs took 'impressions' of some of his patients' mouths.
Dr. Boggs' chief complaint is that he was denied a trial De novo by the circuit court pursuant to § 54--193. 3 He contends that he was entitled to a relitigation of all issues, including a redetermination of punishment, independent of the finding of the Board, and that he should have been allowed to produce evidence in mitigation of his punishment.
The trial court heard evidence De novo as to the...
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