Case Name: Charles F. Bandel, Plaintiff, v. The City of New York, The Board of Health of the City of New York, Defendants
Court: New York Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1910-09
Citations: 69 Misc. 93
Docket Number: 
Parties: Charles F. Bandel, Plaintiff, v. The City of New York, The Board of Health of the City of New York, Defendants.
Judges: 
Reporter: New York Miscellaneous Reports
Volume: 69
Pages: 93–96

Head Matter:
Charles F. Bandel, Plaintiff, v. The City of New York, The Board of Health of the City of New York, Defendants.
(Supreme Court, Kings Special Term,
September, 1910.)
Constitutional law — Privileges and immunities of citizens and equal protection of laws — Discrimination against particular classes of persons — Doctors of osteopathy.
Doctors of osteopathy are not denied the equal protection of the laws nor are they unlawfully discriminated against by an ordinance of the board of health of the city of New York requiring, as a condition of the granting of a transit permit for the removal or burial of the remains of a deceased person, a certificate signed by a physician on whom has been conferred the degree of doctor of medicine; since, even if the theoretical education of a doctor of osteopathy be of a standard equal to that of doctor of medicine, after he enters on his profession his practice is so restricted that it does not appear he can make the tests by which alone many diseases can be certainly detected.
Demurrer to a complaint seeking to enjoin the enforcement of section 163a of the Sanitary Code of the city of New York.
Archibald R. Watson, Corporation Counsel (James D. Bell and P. E. Callahan, of counsel), for demurrer.
O’Brien, Boardman, Platt & Littleton (Martin W. Little-ton, of counsel), opposed.

Opinion:
Putnam, J.
The right of the osteopaths to be registered as physicians in the health department of the city of New York has been sustained. Matter of Bandel v. Dept. of Health, 193 N. Y. 133. The court also declared them qualified to give certificates as to the cause of death, but the opinion (Vann, J.) also stated: "While, doubtless, the department of health can make stringent regulations as to the persons whose certificates of death it will accept for the purpose of a burial permit, it is sufficient to say that, so far as appears, when this proceeding was commenced it had not made any regulation which excluded licensed osteopaths from the right to give such certificates." p. 140.