Title: Norwood v. Parenteau

State: south-dakota

Issuer: South Dakota Supreme Court

Document:

63 N.W.2d 807 (1954) NORWOOD v. PARENTEAU et al. No. 9375. Supreme Court of South Dakota. April 13, 1954. *808 Parnell J. Donohue, Bonesteel, for appellant. Austin & Hinderaker, Watertown, for respondents. LEEDOM, Judge. The State Board of Examiners in Optometry, the respondents, pursuant to the authority of SDC 27.07, as amended, and the rules and regulations promulgated thereunder, cited appellant, who had practiced optometry in South Dakota for about 30 years, to appear for a hearing before the Board on a charge of "unprofessional conduct". The accusation of unprofessional conduct related entirely to the manner in which appellant had advertised the availability of his professional services. The evidence taken at the hearing disclosed that appellant's manner of advertising did violate the rules of the Board. It is appellant's position that the rules thus violated are an invasion of his constitutional right to follow his lawful vocation and are therefore void and that they are so restrictive as to eliminate the itinerant practitioner from the field of optometry and therefore, if given validity, achieve by indirection a result the law would not condone if such result were attempted by direct regulation. After the hearing the Board entered findings of fact and conclusions of law adverse to appellant, determined that his manner of advertising constituted unprofessional conduct and made and filed an order revoking his certificate of registration which constituted his license or authority to practice. He appealed to the circuit court of Hughes county and that court entered an order affirming the order of revocation entered by the Board. The doctor has appealed to this court. After careful consideration of all of appellant's assignments of error we are of the view that the Board was within its authority in promulgating the rules here involved and in revoking appellant's registration for the violation. SDC Supp. 27.0701 defines the practice of optometry as follows: SDC Supp. 27.0703 relating to the powers of the Board provides in part in subsection (3): SDC Supp. 27.0707 provides for revocation of certificates of registration by the Board after hearing, for stated causes. Subsection (6) lists "unprofessional conduct" as a cause for revocation and defines the phrase. This subsection expressly provides independently of rules to be promulgated that certain specified conduct is unprofessional and therefore grounds for revocation of a certificate. Included in this category is the specific prohibition against use of substantially all the usual mediums of advertising to "set forth more than the name, profession, title, location, phone number and office hours of the optometrist," thus in effect limiting advertising in all events to these items. And then pursuant to the administrative power vested in the Board by the quoted provision of SDC Supp. 27.0703(3), SDC Supp. 27.0707(6) brings within the "unprofessional" category, conduct violative of rules of the Board, with this language: Pursuant to the statutory authority the Board adopted, among other rules, these: The testimony discloses that appellant has for many years served as an optometrist in several communities in western South Dakota. His practice is that of the itinerant as that word is used in the evidence. He visited the towns where he practiced with considerable regularity several times a year and maintained neither a permanent office nor a residence in any town so served. Prior to each visit he advertised his coming by a system developed over the years and which he deemed necessary to bring his old and new patients to his temporary offices. As the restrictions on advertising were first imposed he made an attempt to follow the spirit if not the letter of the law and learned as he testified, that the more moderate advertising thus employed resulted in appreciable loss of business; and so he *810 changed again in the direction of his earlier advertising practices. At the time just prior to his hearing he was using media and methods admittedly in violation of the regulations. He distributed prohibited handbills. His newspaper ads exceeded the size allowed by the rules of the Board, and the composition was not that prescribed by statute but contained the word "Notice" and the phrases "Eyes Examined" and "Glasses Fitted" in addition to the doctor's name and information as to the time and place of his visit. He also displayed a banner outside the building in which his temporary office was situated. It violated the rules and regulations. It was neither claimed nor proven that any of appellant's advertising was deceptive, and no charge was made of misconduct except as to use of unauthorized advertising as stated. There is no question but that reasonable regulation of optometry either by specific statutory rules or by regulations promulgated by an administrative board pursuant to statutory authority, is within the police power conferred upon the legislature in the interests of the preservation of the public health and general welfare. Annotations 22 A.L.R.2d 939 and 98 A.L.R. 905. Much space is devoted in appellant's brief to the proposition that regulations of the nature here involved would be proper if optometry were designated to be one of the "learned" professions but are improper where, as in South Dakota, the statute declares optometry to be only a "profession". Reliance is placed on the case of State ex rel. Attorney General v. Gus Blass Co., 193 Ark. 1159, 105 S.W.2d 853. The Arkansas case was decided in 1937. We find no sound basis for any rule of law that provides strict regulation for the learned professions and prohibits such regulation as to optometry on the ground it had not been designated a "learned profession" by legislative action. See Klein v. Department of Registration and Education, 412 Ill. 75, 105 N.E.2d 758, certiorari denied, 344 U.S. 855, 73 S. Ct. 93, 97 L. Ed. 664; also Bennett v. Indiana State Board of Registration And Examination in Optometry, 211 Ind. 678, 7 N.E.2d 977. The contention is rejected by the New Jersey court in a recent and well considered case, Abelson's Inc. v. New Jersey State Board of Optometrists, 5 N.J. 412, 75 A.2d 867, 869, 22 A.L.R.2d 929. In that case the court said: We are satisfied that the validity of the regulations here involved does not depend on a legislative determination that optometry is a "learned profession". These regulations in our opinion flow from the same legislative authority that this court recognized in Cavanagh v. Coleman, 72 S.D. 274, 33 N.W.2d 282; and see City of Sioux Falls v. Kadinger, S.D., 50 N.W.2d 797, and S.D., 59 N.W.2d 631; also Bartron v. Codington County, 68 S.D. 309, 2 N.W.2d 337, 140 A.L.R. 550. It is also our view that the rules adopted by the Board and which appellant violated do not go beyond the specific authority granted by the statute so as to constitute legislative rather than administrative action by the Board. This is not a case where the power is defined in vague and general language. It will be observed that the statutory language quite specifically authorized the Board to do exactly what it did do, that is the statute authorized the Board to "prescribe the mediums of advertising * * * and the size, nature, and type of signs and professional cards that may be used." Construing this with the statutory definition of unprofessional conduct it cannot be said that the Board promulgated rules broader or in excess of the legislative intent in the statutory enactment. The serious question in the case is whether or not the statutory provisions, and the rules adopted thereunder, are reasonably related to the broad purpose of the enactments, that is the preservation of the public health and promotion of the general welfare. Two considerations, primarily, lead us to the conclusion that we cannot hold the statute and the regulations unreasonable and invalid. First: It is a well established principle that once the right to regulate is determined to be within the police power "debatable questions as to reasonableness are not for the courts but for the Legislature, which is entitled to form its own judgment * * *." Sproles v. Binford, 286 U.S. 374, 388, 52 S. Ct. 581, 585, 76 L. Ed. 1167. Cases upholding regulation of optometry, and the general principle as well that all doubts or uncertainty must be construed by courts in favor of validity of the regulation, are Klein v. Department of Registration and Education, supra, 412 Ill. 75, 105 N.E.2d 758, and State v. Rones, 223 La. 839, 67 So. 2d 99, 105. In the latter case the court said: Second: Looking at the enactments from the viewpoint of a legislator, in a search for a rational connection between the severe restrictions on advertising and the broad purpose of protecting the public, it is necessary to consider the history of legislation that either prohibits or restricts advertising of professional services. The earliest cases involved physicians and surgeons and are gathered in the annotation at 54 A.L.R. 400. Regulatory and prohibitive measures were generally sustained as valid exercise of police power. In McNaughton v. Johnson, 242 U.S. 344, 37 S. Ct. 178, 61 L. Ed. 352, Ann.Cas.1917B, 801, the Supreme Court recognized that the authority that justifies regulation of medicine is the same that justifies regulation of optometry. *812 Referring to cited cases establishing the authority of a state to regulate the practice of medicine using the word medicine in its broadest sense, the Court in the McNaughton case said with reference to the measures regulatory of optometry then under attack, "The cases cited above establish that the state has such power and it [the regulation] requires no more of complainant than it requires of any other ophthalmologist, to use her word, or of any other optometrist, to use the word of the statute." 242 U.S. 349, 37 S. Ct. 180. Dealing with highly restrictive provisions as to advertising by the dental profession Chief Justice Hughes in Semler v. Oregon State Board of Dental Examiners, 294 U.S. 608, 55 S. Ct. 570, 571, 79 L. Ed. 1086, used language that reveals the reasonable connection between the public welfare and the restrictions. He said: From these authorities it is clear that highly restrictive measures as to physicians and surgeons are valid, also that the authority and the need for regulation of physicians, surgeons, and dentists are basically and actually the same with respect to optometry; also that regulation within the broad field has been slowly evolutionary in character both as to the extent of the restriction and the professions to which applied. What this court said in the Bartron Case, supra, 68 S.D. 309, 2 N.W.2d 337, 345, is indicative of the trend and pertinent on the question of the reasonableness of the regulations here involved: The cases and legislative enactments involved further reveal that as to physicians, surgeons, and dentists advertising in the usual sense, and except for the professional card provided by our statute for the optometrist, is almost universally prohibited. "It would seem that the public has as much need to be protected from quacks and charlatans in optometry as in dentistry or any other subdivision of medicine." State ex rel. Sisemore v. Standard Optical Co. of Oregon, 182 Or. 452, 188 P.2d 309, 312. Considering that the legislature has only applied to optometry regulations validly imposed on kindred activities, and that the best authorities hold the legislative power with respect to the one is the same as to the others, it seems quite clear to us that we cannot say there is no reasonable basis for these regulations; and this is true even though they may seem to us more restrictive than they need be to achieve the purpose sought. We therefore hold the regulations valid. What we have said disposes of all the issues. In view however of appellant's urgent contention that the regulations are invalid because they would eliminate him from the itinerant field we specifically deal with this subject very briefly. We first observe that appellant may be unduly alarmed about the effect of the new rules on the practice of an itinerant. Assuming however that he is right and that the regulations so hamper the itinerants within the field, as to render it quite impossible to continue along the established pattern, relief cannot come from the courts where, as here, the decision is reached that the regulations constitute reasonable action by the administrative board under authority properly vested through a valid legislative exercise of police power. These regulations apply alike to all the optometrists in South Dakota. As Judge Vinson said in Johnston v. Board of Dental Examiners, 77 U.S.App.D.C. 119, 134 F.2d 9, 12, certiorari denied, 319 U.S. 758, 63 S. Ct. 1177, 87 L.Ed. 1710: The views herein expressed coincide with those of the circuit court. The order from which the appeal is taken is affirmed. All the Judges concur.