Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/13-534_19m2.pdf
Page Number: 8.0

Cite as:  574 U. S. ____ (2015) 

3 

Opinion of the Court 

prices  for  their  services  than  the  dentists  did.  Dentists 
soon  began  to  complain  to  the  Board  about  their  new 
competitors.  Few  complaints  warned  of  possible  harm  to 
consumers.  Most  expressed  a  principal  concern  with  the 
low prices charged by nondentists. 

Responding to these filings, the Board opened an inves­
tigation into nondentist teeth whitening.  A dentist mem­
ber  was  placed  in  charge  of  the  inquiry.  Neither  the 
Board’s  hygienist  member  nor  its  consumer  member  par­
ticipated  in  this  undertaking.  The  Board’s  chief  opera­
tions  officer  remarked  that  the  Board  was  “going  forth  to 
do  battle”  with  nondentists.    App.  to  Pet.  for  Cert.  103a. 
The  Board’s  concern  did  not  result  in  a  formal  rule  or 
regulation  reviewable  by  the  independent  Rules  Review
Commission,  even  though  the  Act  does  not,  by  its  terms, 
specify that teeth whitening is “the practice of dentistry.”
Starting in 2006, the Board issued at least 47 cease-and­
desist  letters  on  its  official  letterhead  to  nondentist  teeth 
whitening  service  providers  and  product  manufacturers. 
Many  of  those  letters  directed  the  recipient  to  cease  “all
activity  constituting  the  practice  of  dentistry”;  warned
that  the  unlicensed  practice  of  dentistry  is  a  crime;  and 
strongly implied (or expressly stated) that teeth whitening 
constitutes  “the  practice  of  dentistry.”    App.  13,  15.    In 
early  2007,  the  Board  persuaded  the  North  Carolina
Board  of  Cosmetic  Art  Examiners  to  warn  cosmetologists
against  providing  teeth  whitening  services.    Later  that 
year, the Board sent letters to mall operators, stating that 
kiosk  teeth  whiteners  were  violating  the  Dental  Practice 
Act  and  advising  that  the  malls  consider  expelling  viola­
tors from their premises. 

These  actions  had  the  intended  result.    Nondentists 

ceased offering teeth whitening services in North Carolina. 

In  2010,  the  Federal  Trade  Commission  (FTC)  filed  an 

C