State Ex Rel. Turner v. Baltzell

• Decision Date: 20 September 1940
• Parties: STATE ex rel. TURNER v. BALTZELL et al.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

197 So. 783

144 Fla. 278

STATE ex rel. TURNER v. BALTZELL et al.

Florida Supreme Court

September 20, 1940

Rehearing Denied Oct. 7, 1940.

En Banc.

Original mandamus proceeding by the State of Florida, on the relation of C. F. Turner, against N. A. Baltzell and others, as and constituting the Florida State Board of Health, and others wherein an alternative writ was issued. On motion to quash the alternative writ.

Motion overruled.

THOMAS J., dissenting.

COUNSEL Fred M. Valz and Sam B. Stearns, both of Jacksonville, for relator.

George Couper Gibbs, Atty. Gen., and J. Compton French, Asst. Atty Gen., for respondents.

OPINION

TERRELL Chief Justice.

Alternative writ of mandamus was directed to respondents commanding them to rescind a rule promulgated December 17, 1939, whereby they provided that specimen containers, biological products, and laboratory services be furnished to doctors of medicine osteopaths, and dental surgeons only and that such services be denied doctors of naturopathy or to show cause why they refuse to do so. Respondents have moved to quash the alternative writ.

The question presented is whether or not respondents acting as the State Board of Health may furnish the laboratory services named in the rule to the designated classes of the healing art and refuse them to doctors of naturopathy, relator being one of the latter school.

There is no controversy about the essential facts from which this litigation arises. It is admitted that relator is a duly licensed naturopath and that naturopathy or naturopathic treatment is recognized as one of the healing arts by the laws of Florida. The power of respondent to promulgate the rule is not challenged; the discrimination that it works against naturopaths is the thing that relator calls in question. To defeat relator's contention, respondents say that mandamus is not the proper remedy, that he should have resorted to mandatory injunction, that there is no clear legal duty on the part of respondents to furnish the service proposed to naturopaths, that naturopaths are not required to and do not meet the educational qualifications required of other practitioners of the healing art and are therefore not entitled to the benefit of the services sought to be enforced.

There may be a basis for controversy as to whether mandamus or some other remedy could not have as well been employed but we indulge in no refinements on this point. More than one remedy is often available to one who initiates a cause in court, and while some other might have served the purpose as well, we hold mandamus to be appropriate here. The remedy is merely the vehicle by which we proceed to the truth of the controversy and ascertain the measure of justice. Chasing technical distinctions between remedies gets us nowhere, it often clouds the main issue in a congeries of muddy babble or failing in this, it has been known to bind and befuddle bench and bar in their own dialectic to such an extent that the real purpose of the litigation is lost sight of. Let us therefore bear in mind that the ultimate question here turns on the answer to that of whether or not there was a proper basis for the discrimination shown to have been worked against relator by the rule complained of.

Naturopathic treatment was authorized in Florida by Chapter 12286, Acts of 1927. By the terms of the act, naturopaths are not permitted to practice materia medica, surgery, or chiropractic. It is defined as:

'* * * the use and practice of Psychological, Mechanical and Material health sciences to aid in purifying, cleansing and normalizing human tissues for the

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