State v. State Medical Examining Board

• Decision Date: 19 July 1884
• Citation: 32 Minn. 324
• Parties: STATE OF MINNESOTA <I>ex rel.</I> David F. Powell <I>vs.</I> STATE MEDICAL EXAMINING BOARD.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

32 Minn. 324

STATE OF MINNESOTA ex rel. David F. Powell vs. STATE MEDICAL EXAMINING BOARD.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

July 19, 1884.

Appeal by the relator from an order of the district court for Ramsey county, Simons, J., presiding, quashing an alternative writ of mandamus. The case made by the pleadings is stated in the opinion.

Sleeper & Donaldson, for relator.

W. J. Hahn, Attorney General, for respondent.

DICKINSON, J.

The relator seeks by mandamus to compel the State Medical Examining Board to issue to him the certificate required by chapter 125 of the laws of 1883, to authorize him to practise the profession of a physician in this state. He has appealed from an order of the district court quashing an alternative writ.

The act referred to creates a board of medical examiners, consisting of the faculty of the medical department of the university of Minnesota. It requires all persons, except such as have been practising medicine five years within the state, as a condition of the right to practise, to procure from this board its certificate or diploma. "Graduates in medicine" are to receive a certificate, upon their diploma being presented to the board and found to be genuine. Other applicants for certificates are required to pass a satisfactory examination before this board. Section 9 of the act contains this provision: "The board of examiners may refuse certificates to individuals guilty of unprofessional or dishonorable conduct, and they may revoke certificates for like causes."

It appears that the relator applied for a certificate from the board, presenting a diploma, which was found to be genuine, showing that he was a graduate of the Louisville (Kentucky) Medical College, in which institution he had passed the prescribed course of study. His application was refused only upon the ground that, as the board considered and determined, the relator was guilty of unprofessional and dishonorable conduct, and was at that time conducting himself in an unprofessional and dishonorable manner, in advertising himself through the newspapers and by circulars to be a medicine man of the Winnebago tribe of Indians, adopted by that tribe, and assuming the name of "White Beaver;" and claiming in such publications the proprietorship of certain specific remedies, one of which he claimed would cure cholera morbus when taken internally, and rheumatism when applied externally; which claims are alleged by the respondents to be untrue and impossible.

We first consider the question as to the constitutionality of that part of the act (section 9) upon which the refusal of the board to grant its certificate is based. The relator urges this objection upon the grounds that the act gives to the applicant no opportunity to be heard in his own defence in relation to any charge of unprofessional and dishonorable conduct, and that by its enforcement he is deprived of his property without due process of law. These objections to the validity of the act cannot be sustained. The vocation of the physician is in itself a lawful one, and the right of any person to engage in it is only subject to such restrictions as the legislature may impose in the exercise of its general police power. While, therefore, the right to engage in this practice is a qualified one, even that qualified right is not to be arbitrarily, and without reason, denied. It is so opposed to the principles of the common law that any fact affecting the rights of an individual shall be investigated and determined ex parte, and without opportunity being afforded to the party to be affected thereby to be heard, — 4 Bl. Comm. 282, 283; State v. Bryce, 7 Ohio, (pt. 2,) 82; Murdock v. Phillips Academy, 12 Pick. 244, — that this act should not be construed as contemplating such a proceeding unless that purpose is expressed in the plainest terms. While the act does not prescribe the manner in which the proceedings for the determination of the matters referred to in section 9 shall be conducted, there is nothing to indicate that it was intended that such investigations, and the determination of the fact, should be made ex parte, or without reasonable opportunity given to the party interested to be heard. The contrary conclusion is rather indicated by the requirement that the board shall "take testimony in all matters relating to its duties," and by the fact that a right of appeal from the determination of the board is conferred.

It may be stated as a general proposition that any person has the right to pursue any lawful calling, but in respect to certain occupations, not in themselves unlawful, this right is necessarily subject to legislative restrictions from considerations of public policy. In the profession of medicine, as in that of the law, so great is the necessity for special qualification in the practitioner, and so injurious the consequences likely to result from a want of it, that the power of the legislature to prescribe such reasonable conditions as are calculated to exclude from the profession those who are unfitted to discharge its duties, cannot be doubted. Hewitt v. Charier, 16 Pick. 353; Spaulding...