State ex rel. Chapman v. State Board of Medical Examiners
| Decision Date | 24 December 1885 |
| Parties | State of Minnesota, ex rel. Edward D. Chapman, v. State Board of Medical Examiners |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Writ of prohibition.
Writ quashed.
John B. & W. H. Sanborn and W. G. White, for relator.
William J. Hahn, Attorney General, and James M. Martin, for respondent.
The relator, being a graduate in medicine, and having received from the University of Pennsylvania a diploma and the degree of M. D., on the 26th of January, 1884, presented his diploma to the State Board of Medical Examiners, which issued to him its certificate to that effect, pursuant to the provisions of Laws 1883, c. 125, entitled "An act to regulate the practice of medicine in the state of Minnesota." In June, 1885, complaint having been made to the board that relator had, since the issue of such certificate, been guilty of dishonorable and unprofessional conduct, it caused a copy of the complaint to be served upon him, together with a notice citing him to appear before it at a time and place named and show cause why his certificate should not be revoked and cancelled, and he be debarred from the practice of medicine in this state. The relator, having obtained a writ of prohibition against the board, asks to have it made absolute.
The board was assuming to act under section 9 of the statute referred to, which reads: "The board of examiners may refuse certificates to individuals guilty of unprofessional or dishonorable conduct, and may revoke certificates for like causes." The relator concedes or takes for granted that this section assumes to give the board power to revoke certificates issued to graduates of medicine who have diplomas, as well as those issued to non-graduates who are examined by the board as to their qualifications. Hence we assume, without further consideration, that such is its proper construction.
The sole point made by relator is that this act, in so far as it assumes to give the board power to revoke certificates, is unconstitutional. He concedes the right of the legislature, in the exercise of the general police power of the state, to prescribe such reasonable rules and regulations as to the qualifications of medical practitioners as are calculated to exclude incompetent or dishonest men from the profession, and, to that end, to require every one who desires to practise medicine and surgery to first obtain a license or certificate, and that the legislature may also vest in a board of examiners, or other administrative or executive body or board, the power to inquire and determine whether applicants possess the prescribed qualifications, and to issue or refuse to issue them certificates in accordance with the result of such examination. Neither does relator deny the power of the legislature to provide for the revocation of such certificates for cause. Indeed, at this day the power to do these things cannot be seriously questioned, -- certainly not successfully disputed. State v. State Medical Examining Board, 32 Minn. 324, 20 N.W. 238.
The sole ground of relator's objection to this provision of the act, and the only one we will consider, is -- First, the license to practise medicine, when once granted, is property; second, that the revocation of this license is the exercise of judicial power which cannot be vested in any executive or administrative board, or even in the legislature itself, but only in the courts in which, by the constitution, all judicial power is vested; third, and hence to assume to vest this power in this board is to deprive a person of his property "without due process of law," which is forbidden by section 7, article 1, of the constitution of the state.
The radical fallacy in this chain of argument is the assumption that the revocation of such a license is the exercise of judicial power. "Due process of law," or "the law of the land," (which means the same thing,) is not necessarily judicial proceedings. Private rights and the enjoyment of...
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