Group Health Ass'n v. Moor, 66392.

• Decision Date: 27 July 1938
• Docket Number: No. 66392.,66392.
• Citation: 24 F. Supp. 445
• Parties: GROUP HEALTH ASS'N v. MOOR et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

24 F. Supp. 445

GROUP HEALTH ASS'N v. MOOR et al.

No. 66392.

District Court of the United States for the District of Columbia.

July 27, 1938.

Horace Russell, of Chicago, Ill., and Luke E. Keeley, A. Blaine York, and E. K. Neumann, all of Washington, D. C., for plaintiff.

Harry L. Underwood, Asst. U. S. Atty., Howard Boyd, Asst. U. S. Atty., Elwood H. Seal, Corp. Counsel, and Vernon E. West, Principal Asst. Corporation Counsel, all of Washington, D. C., for defendants.

BAILEY, Justice.

The "Healing Arts Practice Act" of 1929 provides inter alia:

"121. The healing art; definitions.—For the purpose of part 1 of this chapter the following words and phrases have the meanings assigned to them, respectively, except where the context otherwise requires:

"(a) `Disease' means any blemish, defect, deformity, infirmity, disorder, disease, or injury of the human body or mind, and pregnancy, and the effects of any of them.

"(b) `The healing art' means the art of detecting or attempting to detect the presence of any disease; of determining or attempting to determine the nature and state of any disease, if present; of preventing, relieving, correcting, or curing, or of attempting to prevent, relieve, correct, or cure any disease; of safeguarding or attempting to safeguard the life of any woman and infant through pregnancy and parturition; and of doing or attempting to do any of the acts enumerated above. * * *

"(c) `To practice' means to do or attempt to do, or to hold oneself out or to allow one-self to be held out as ready to do, any act enumerated in subsection (b) of this section as constituting a part of the healing art, for a fee, gift, or reward, or in anticipation of any fee, gift, or reward, whether tangible or intangible."

"122. License required; terms of license to be observed.—No person shall practice the healing art in the District of Columbia who is not (a) licensed so to do, or (b) if exempted from licensure under sections 153 and 155 of this title, then duly registered.

"No person shall practice the healing art in the District of Columbia otherwise than in accordance with the terms of his license or of his registration, as the case may be." D.C. Code 1929, T. 20, §§ 121, 122.

The plaintiff is a non-profit corporation organized under Title 5, Chap. 5, Section 121 et seq., of the District of Columbia Code 1929, providing for corporations for "benevolent, charitable, educational, literary, musical, scientific, religious, or missionary purposes, including societies formed for mutual improvement, or for the promotion of the arts." D.C. Code 1929, T. 5, § 121.

The defendant, David A. Pine, United States District Attorney, claims that the plaintiff is illegally engaged in the practice of medicine in the District and the bill alleges that he gave notice to the plaintiff that unless such operations were immediately suspended he would file a bill for an injunction or institute legal proceedings looking to the involuntary dissolution of the plaintiff corporation.

The plaintiff is not of course practicing medicine in the sense that it is itself prescribing for the sick, and it contends that it only enters into contract with duly licensed physicians who themselves attend the members of the corporation and if necessary prescribe for them.

I see no reason why an individual may not without violating the statute contract with a physician for medical services for a stipulated period at fixed compensation; and it would seem that a group of individuals might make the same arrangement with a group of physicians. It would seem that this group of individuals might incorporate themselves for...