Court Opinion

ID: 9552284
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:08:03.88224+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:26:04.247880
License: Public Domain

*161MOSK, J.
I concur. Justice Tobriner’s opinion for the majority not only properly relates the. current law in California, but expresses a sensitive and sound public policy.
There is only one qualification attached to my approval. I would find it difficult, in an appropriate factual context, to recognize vested or fundamental rights—as those terms are used in the majority opinion—in one who is licensed as a member of a profession or state-regulated vocation but not in another who seeks a license to practice his calling, particularly if the latter is equally well qualified by virtue of his investment of time and treasure. (Cf. Hallinan v. Committee of Bar Examiners (1966) 65 Cal.2d 447, 452-453, fn. 3 [55 Cal.Rptr. 228, 421 P.2d 76].) The suggested distinction arises primarily because of chronology, a circumstance that seems entitled to a minimum of weight. (See So. Cal. Jockey Club v. Cal. etc. Racing Bd. (1950) 36 Cal.2d 167, 180 [223 P.2d 1] (dissenting opn. of Traynor, J.).)
Professor Jaffe is quoted as observing that the California rule may be “needed to overcome likely prejudices of a professional licensing body against mavericks and unconventional practitioners.” (Ante, p. 145.) I agree wholeheartedly. But not all mavericks, innovators and iconoclasts are already admitted to regulated vocations and alone in peril of prejudiced disciplinary proceedings. In these days of widespread impatience with and irreverence for traditional schools of thought one need not be prescient to anticipate future incidents resulting from prejudicial attitudes by official boards and commissions toward those seeking admission to the ? same occupations.
In concurring with the majority, I do not choose to be foreclosed in the future from considering whether a rejected applicant, like a disciplined licensee, has been denied fundamental rights. I would apply substantially the same standards of review to both.