People ex rel. Bennett v. Laman

• Decision Date: 12 April 1938
• Citation: 14 N.E.2d 439,277 N.Y. 368
• Parties: PEOPLE ex rel. BENNETT, Atty. Gen., et al. v. LAMAN.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

277 N.Y. 368

14 N.E.2d 439

PEOPLE ex rel. BENNETT, Atty. Gen., et al.

v.LAMAN.

Court of Appeals of New York.

April 12, 1938

Action by the People, on the relation of John J. Bennett, Jr., as Attorney General, and others, as members and constituting the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York, against Earl S. Laman, to restrain defendant from practicing medicine unlawfully. From a judgment of the Appellate Division, Third Department, 250 App.Div. 660, 295 N.Y.S. 728, which affirmed a judgment of the Special Term, dismissing the complaint, 158 Misc. 909, 286 N.Y.S. 467, relators appeal by permission of the Court of Appeals, motion for leave to appeal having been denied, 252 App.Div. 704, 298 N.Y.S. 995.

Judgments reversed, and motion to dismiss denied.

LEHMAN and RIPPEY, JJ., dissenting. Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Department.

John J. Bennett, Jr., Atty. Gen. (Sol Ullman, of New York City, and Henry Epstein and Ernest E. Cole, both of Albany, of counsel), for appellant.

Glen N. W. McNaughton and Arthur J. Delany, both of New York City, for respondent.

CRANE, Chief Judge.

This action has been brought by the People, on relation of the Attorney General and the State Board of Regents, to restrain the defendant from practicing medicine unlawfully and in violation of the Education Law, Conso.Laws, c. 16. Before service of an answer, the defendant moved to dismiss the complaint, and the courts below have granted that motion. On this appeal we must take the facts alleged in the complaint to be true. The complaint is a very lengthy one, and we shall not attempt to summarize all the allegations, but shall call brief attention to those we deem material and more important. The situation as outlined in the complaint appears thus:

For the past fifteen years the defendant has maintained offices in the city of Binghamton and in Endicott city, in the county of Broome. During that time he has practiced medicine, as defined in section 1250, subdivision 7, of the Education Law, and is holding himself out to the public as being able to diagnose and treat diseases, pains, and physical conditions. In that period he has treated a great many patients and has received compensation for his services. He lacks knowledge, skill, and ability for the practice of medicine in this state, and he is inefficient and wholly unequal to the responsibilities of a medical practitioner in this state. It appears that after leaving high school defendant was by turn a prescription clerk in a drug store, a rural mail carrier, a railway mail clerk, and a secret service agent. He spent only twenty-two months in a chiropractic school, and he neither spent the required time in study nor received instruction in the prescribed subjects, as demanded by this state of an applicant to practice medicine.

Defendant gives his patients chiropractic treatments, and in his work he has used and applied heat and electric lamps, light rays, vibrators, and ointments. He intends and threatens to continue the practice of medicine and to hold himself out as being able to diagnose and treat human diseases, pains, and physical conditions.

The complaint sets forth all the requirements of the Education Law Respecting the qualifications, examinations, and licensing of practitioners, and alleges that defendant lacks the proper qualifications, training, and knowledge required by the law; that he has never been examined, licensed, or registered as a physician, physiotherapist, or osteopath under the laws of this state; and that he has no authority to practice in this state. He has openly, repeatedly, and intentionally carried on his practice with full knowledge that he is violating the law of this state, and he is endangering the health and welfare of the people. The complaint charges that by reason of the activities of defendant and other chiropractors of the county in publicity and propaganda, that many members of the community have come to believe that, regardless of the provisions of law, chiropractors are entitled to practice in this state, even though they practice medicine in doing so.

It is finally alleged: ‘That repeated criminal prosecutions of defendant for his unlawful practice of medicine, will make necessary a multiplicity of criminal prosecutions of defendant for his myriad daily acts of unlawful practice, and should convictions result at any time, the penalties provided by law would be insufficient and inadequate as to defendant and would not afford protection to the health and safety of the public as against his uninformed, unskilled, inefficient, incompetent, unqualified and unlicensed practice of medicine. On information and belief, that the continuous, habitual and intentional violation of the law by defendant in practicing medicine in the State of New York without a license to so practice, and the continuous diagnosis and treatment by defendant of the diseases, pains, deformities and physical conditions of men, women and children in the State of New York in an uninformed and unskilled manner and without possessing the education, professional ability and medical knowledge required by law, has endangered, impaired and imperilled and threatens to endanger, impair and imperil the health of the public, has defeated and defeats public policy, has constituted, constitutes and will constitute an open, public and continuous nuisance in the County of Broome, State of New York, and has been and will be subversive to and has caused and will cause irreparable injury to the health, safety and welfare of the People of the State of New York, and that said public nuisance cannot be caused to cease except by injunctive order in and by a court of equity.’ These allegations that defendant is inefficient, unskilled, lacking in learning and ability, and wholly unequal to the responsibilities required of a practitioner of medicine, and that he has and will endanger the public health and welfare, and will be a menace to the health of the community, we treat as true. The regulation of the practice of medicine is undertaken by the state, not for the protection of the physicians themselves, but for the protection and welfare of the people. ‘The power of the State to provide for the general welfare of its people authorizes it to prescribe all such regulations as, in its judgment, will secure or tend to secure them against the consequences of ignorance and incapacity as well as of deception and fraud.’ Dent v. West Virginia, 129 U.S. 114, 122, 9 S.Ct. 231, 233, 32 L.Ed. 623;People v. Mulford, 140 App.Div. 716, 125 N.Y.S. 680, affirmed 202 N.Y. 624, 96 N.E. 1125. Those seeking medical attention have no means of estimating the skill and ability of the physician, and must depend upon the state to permit only those qualified to engage in that profession. The fact that one practicing does not possess a license does not necessarily mean that he is ignorant, incapable, and a menace to the public health. In the case at bar, however, the complaint alleges that the defendant is unskilled, incapable, lacking wholly in the qualifications required by statute, and had endangered and will continue to be a menace to the public health.

Article 48 of the Education Law governs the practice of medicine in this state. We need not advert here to the various provisions of that article. Section 1263 provides for penalties. By subdivision 2:

‘Any person who not being then lawfully licensed or authorized to practice medicine within this state shall

‘(a) Practice or advertise to practice medicine; or

‘(b) Use in connection with his name any designation tending to imply or designate him as a practitioner of medicine; or

‘(c) Use the title ‘doctor’ or any abbreviation thereof in connection with his name or with any trade name in the conduct of any occupation or profession involving or pertaining to the public health or the diagnosis or treatment of any human disease, pain, injury, deformity, or physical condition, unless duly authorized by law to use the same; * * * shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.'

That is the punishment prescribed by statute for the unlawful practice of medicine. The question before us on this appeal is whether a court of equity of this state has jurisdiction to enjoin the unlawful activities of defendant, or whether jurisdiction over his acts exists only in the proper criminal courts.

That a court of equity will not undertake the enforcement of the criminal law, and will not enjoin the commission of a crime, is a principle of equity jurisprudence that is settled beyond any question. There can equally be no doubt that the criminal nature of an act will not deprive equity of the jurisdiction that would otherwise attach. Cranford v. Tyrrell, 128 N.Y. 341, 28 N.E. 514;Davis v. Zimmerman, 91 Hun 489, 492,36 N.Y.S. 303;Matter of Debs, 158 U.S. 564, 593, 15 S.Ct. 900, 39 L.Ed. 1092. Whether or not the act sought to be enjoined is a crime, is immaterial. Equity does not seek to enjoin it simply because it is a crime; it seeks to protect some proper interest. If the interest sought to be protected is one of which equity will take cognizance, it will not refuse to take jurisdiction on the ground that the act which invades that interest is punishable by the penal statutes of the state. Equity does not pretend to punish the perpetrator for the act; it attempts to protect the right of the party (here the People) seeking relief, and to prevent the performance of the act or acts, which here may injury many.

In an early case in this state, Chancellor Kent laid down a rule which has been often cited, Attorney General v. Utica Ins. Co., 2 Johns.Ch. 371, at pages 378, 380: ‘If a charge be of a criminal nature, or an offence against the public, and does not touch the enjoyment of property, it ought not to be brought within the direct jurisdiction of this court, which was intended to deal only in matters of civil right, resting in equity, or where the...