Goldsmith v. Kingsford
| Decision Date | 01 June 1943 |
| Docket Number | No. 3419.,3419. |
| Citation | 32 A.2d 810 |
| Parties | GOLDSMITH v. KINGSFORD et al. |
| Court | New Hampshire Supreme Court |
Transferred from Superior Court, Merrimack County; Lorimer, Judge.
Proceeding for certiorari by Ernest F. Goldsmith to vacate an order of Howard N. Kingsford and another, constituting the State Board of Medical Examiners, revoking plaintiff's license to practice medicine. Questions transferred to the Supreme Court by the superior court without ruling.
Certiorari denied.
Petition for certiorari, to vacate an order made by the defendants, who constitute the State Board of Medical Examiners, revoking the plaintiff's license to practice medicine in the state. Without ruling the superior court (Lorimer, J.) has transferred the following questions:
1. Whether the findings of the Board and its order revoking the license could reasonably be made, and the evidence was sufficient to warrant the findings and the order?
2. Were the Board's admissions of certain evidence to which the plaintiff objected and excepted erroneous?
3. Were the findings and order invalidated because a member of the Board who took part in its final deliberations was not present at the first hearing though he had opportunity to examine the record of it?
4. Did the Board improperly refuse to receive evidence to show the disqualification of one or more of its members?
Laurence I. Duncan and Robert W. Upton, both of Concord, for plaintiff.
Ernest R. D'Amours, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the Board.
By statute (R.L. c. 250, § 13) the State Board of Medical Examiners is empowered to register and license without examination applicants to engage in the practice of medicine who are “legally qualified to treat human ailments or practice medicine in any state or country whose requirements the board deems equal to those in this state”, upon the payment of the prescribed fee. Such a license may be revoked, after hearing, for a number of reasons, including the obtainment of it “by fraudulent means”. Ib., §§ 14, 15.
The jurisdiction of the courts to review the proceedings and orders of administrative agencies of the state when the legislature has made no provision for appeals from their orders has been held to be confined to questions of their “jurisdiction, authority, or observance of the law.” Cloutier v. State Milk Control Board, N.H., 28 A.2d 554, 557.
In observance of the law, an agency's findings of fact as the basis of orders must be reasonably supported by the evidence. While such bodies are not held to the rules of evidence employed by strictly judicial tribunals, conclusions must be rational and logical to be legal. Inferences which cannot be drawn without the support of conjecture are arbitrary, and in making them the law is not observed. As has been said, the evidence before an administrative body may be such as “responsible persons are accustomed to rely [upon] in serious affairs.” National, [etc.] Board v. Remington Rand, 2 Cir., 94 F.2d 862, 873.
Considering the issue whether the plaintiff obtained his license by fraudulent means under this Act, it is to be observed that the statute requires the fraud to be causal. If fraud was practiced but was of no efficiency in obtaining the license, a condition of the statute for revocation of the license was not met. It was for the Board to receive evidence of the causal force of the fraud. Without evidence supporting the finding of such effect of the fraud, the finding may not be upheld as valid. The Board has found that the license was obtained by the plaintiff “by deliberately and fraudulently misleading the Board with respect to his full medical qualifications,” and that if it “had known at the time of application what it knows now about his medical scholarship and experiences as a result of the evidence in this case, it would not have granted” him a license without examination.
A review of the evidence reveals its insufficiency for a reasonable conclusion of causal fraud in obtaining the license.
The application was received April 19, 1938, and the license granted May 10, 1938, apparently on the approval of three of the five members of the Board as it was then constituted, the other two taking no part. One who approved was the secretary of the Board, Dr. Clow. During the pendency of the application he asked by letter for suggestions from all the other members on the two points of numerous applications from men from Europe and of the plaintiff's “unique character”. The letter stated the plaintiff's medical education, with “much of his time” spent in research “in about every branch of medicine fundamental and clinical” and with the remark: “He is obviously a highly trained, scientific scholar.” The record indicates no other inquiry or discussion in connection with the application.
The plaintiff came to this country in 1926 from Germany where he was born and had lived. When emigrating he was 34 years old. He became a citizen of the United States in 1932. While living in Germany he had academic education and received advanced degrees. On coming to this country he studied for the medical profession and was engaged in medical research under practicing medical specialists and in connection with medical institutions. In 1932 he went to Prague in Czechoslovakia where he became a medical student in the German University of Prague. Its medical department is one of excellent standing. In three medical examinations there with six different subjects in each he obtained satisfactory marks and was given the degree of doctor of medicine in 1937, when he returned to this country, residing in New York City until he came to New Hampshire upon notice of eligibility to be licensed to practice here as soon as he acquired local residence.
Before going to Prague he attended the medical schools of Yale, New York and Columbia Universities. He failed in his examinations in the two schools first mentioned. This was in 1930. His failure at New York University preceded that at Yale.
Two charges of fraud in the application are made. One is the omission to state these failures under the heading of “Medical Education”. The other is the statement that he had been “examined and licensed” in Czechoslovakia. No license there had in fact been granted.
The plaintiff disclaims any fraud in the misstatement. The only pertinent evidence before the Board was that his degree obtained at Prague gave to citizens of Czechoslovakia the right to a license to practice there, and that because he was an alien there, a special permit was needed, as a formality, and with no question of his medical qualifications. In other words, his degree entitled him to practice there, on compliance with some routine governmental regulations for practice by aliens.
The application form furnished by the Board and filled out by the plaintiff and an appendix accompanying it as a certified...
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