Court Opinion

ID: 9657904
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 20:40:53.535353+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:49.292933
License: Public Domain

MURRAH, Circuit Judge
(dissenting in part).
With reluctance and some misgivings, I concur in that part of the judgment of the court declaring unconstitutional the legislative prohibitions against fitting, adjusting, adapting or applying lenses, frames, prisms or other optical appliances to the face of a person, or duplicating or replacing the same without prescriptive authority of a licensed ophthalmologist or optometrist.
The obvious result of this legislation is to appropriate a property right of one class to follow a legitimate calling or occupation and to give it to another class not shown to be more competent in the public interest. Indeed, the evidence shows that it would be inimical to the public interest to require the wearer of *145eye glasses to return to the ophthalmologist in order to obtain a prescription for the replacement or duplication of an eye glass, or to place the burden upon the ophthalmologist of merchandising frames and mountings and other appliances, or placing that purely commercial monopoly in the optometrist. There is no rational basis for depriving the optician of the right to perform this purely mechanical and commercial service to the public.
I cannot agree, however, that the legislature of the state may not constitutionally prohibit any person, firm, company, corporation or partnership from soliciting the sale of frames, mountings, prisms, or any other instrument deemed essential and used in the field of visual care by enumerated methods of advertising when it does so for the declared purpose of vouchsafing the “best possible visual care” to the public.
The effect of the order of the court is to make it unlawful to advertise the sale of spectacles, eye glasses or lenses but to allow any person, firm, company, corporation or partnership to solicit the sale of the empty frames, mountings, prisms and other appliances or devices. By this method one so engaged may circumvent the very evil to which the legislation is aimed, namely, prohibiting dishonest and dangerous practices in the sale of optical goods and devices.
There can-be no doubt of the power of the legislature to regulate advertising practices of retail dealers of eye glasses. See State v. Rones, 223 La. 839, 67 So.2d 99, and cases cited at page 105. There may be good reasons for requiring the prohibition of advertising the sale of merchandise, the actual sale of which is not prohibited. Commonwealth v. Ferris, 305 Mass. 233, 25 N.E.2d 378. It is true that all of the statutes which have been upheld as a valid regulation or restriction on the advertising of the sale of eye glasses have been judicially construed to apply to the furnishing of optometrical services or actual visual care, and not the mere sale of frames, mountings or fittings as merchandise. But I entertain no doubt of the power of the legislature to regulate the advertising of the empty frames, mountings and prisms and other optical devices if the object of such legislation is the prevention of fraud or mistake or to protect the public against deceptive practices in the broad field of visual care. The power of the state to regulate or restrict advertising of a commercial business affected with a public interest has been upheld in a great variety of cases, including the sale of eye glasses. See Commonwealth v. Ferris, supra, 25 N.E.2d at page 380; Commonwealth v. Nutting, 175 Mass. 154, 55 N.E. 895, affirmed 183 U.S. 553, 22 S.Ct. 238, 46 L.Ed. 324; Ritholz v. Commonwealth, 184 Va. 339, 35 S.E.2d 210.
Considered in isolation, an eye glass frame or mounting is no more than a mere piece of merchandise. But considered in the context of the total field of visual care, it takes on a significant relationship to the visual needs of the public and ceases to be a mere piece of merchandise to be dealt with in the market place on an arm’s length basis. As the dispenser of the completed eye glass the optician is a trained technician — the “right arm” of the ophthalmologist. As such he may be held to a standard more strict than the morals of the market place. Certainly the well-defined and legitimate functions he performs, both as a trained technician and a merchandiser, in the field of visual care are affected with a public interest, and the public may not be left to deal with him at arm’s length. And it is the same with the merchant optometrist. Certainly in the eyes of the public the optometrist is, not seen in his dual capacity of a merchandiser as to whom he is required to deal at arm’s length, and a professional in whom he can place his trust and confidence.
The challenged act is a legislative scheme to effect one declared public policy and each of its parts ought to be considered in pari materia in determining whether or not the legislature has acted *146beyond the scope of its broad and comprehensive police powers. Section 4 is pertinent, therefore, to the inquiry whether a valid constitutional basis can be found for prohibiting the advertisement of the merchandise not of itself related to visual care. Section 4 prohibits rebates, kick-backs, and solicitation by those selling optical goods, appliances or materials. And it forbids corporate practice. All of these we leave as proper subjects of police power. But the judgment of the court strikes down that part of the section which prohibits any retail establishment from renting space in its establishment to any person doing eye examinations or visual care. This prohibition in the statute is said not to bear any reasonable relationship to the admitted power of preventing corporate practice, or for that matter any other practice deemed not in the public interest.
I agree that on its face it seems unreasonable and irrational to deny to the professional man quarters in a retail establishment. But to me the undisputed facts in this case point up the very evil to which the legislation is aimed.
Ellis Carp is the owner or is interested in eighteen optical establishments in Texas. All of them are dispensing opticians. He is also interested in a supply house in Dallas where lenses are ground on orders from the dispensing opticians. In Texas, Mr. Carp employs persons on salary to refract the eyes of those who are induced to come to his optical establishments. By this method the dispensing optician solicits the business, refers the customers to the salaried employee who does the refracting and prescribes for the visual correction. The prescription is returned to the optician for filling, fitting and adjusting. So, the optical company operating under a trade name actually performs the optical services constituting the very corporate practice which Oklahoma legislation condemns and prohibits.
In Oklahoma, Mr. Carp owns and operates the Douglas Optical Company in Tulsa in space rented from the Zale Jewelry Company. The Douglas Optical Company is a dispensing optical company which advertises by all of the media condemned in the challenged legislation. Soon after the Douglas Optical Company commenced business, Dr. Rips, a licensed ophthalmologist, and formerly in the employ of Carp in Dallas, came to Tulsa; conveniently rented space in the Zale Jewelry Company and set himself up in practice. Admittedly all of the members of the public seeking visual care, who are induced to come to Douglas by its advertisements, are referred to Dr. Rips, and while no one is compelled to take Dr. Rip's prescription to Douglas, “most of them go there because they generally come from there.”
Mr. Carp is also the president of a corporation known as the Lee Optical Company with ground floor offices in the American National Building in Oklahoma City. It employs advertising media condemned and prohibited in the legislation. Soon after the Lee Optical Company opened for business in Oklahoma City, Dr. Conti formerly employed by Carp in Texas to refract eyes, came to Oklahoma City and established himself in offices on the third floor of the American National Building. All of the members of the public who are induced to come to the Lee Optical Company for visual care are referred to Dr. Conti whose prescriptions usually find their way back to Lee Optical Company for filling.
While neither Conti nor Rips is employed by Lee Optical Company or Douglas Optical Company, and neither of them rebates for the referrals, the reciprocal arrangements enable them to completely commercialize the whole field of visual care, which we agree is affected with a public interest and subject to legislative control.
Under the order of the court, Douglas may continue to occupy space in Zale’s Jewelry Company in Tulsa. Dr. Rips may continue to occupy space under the same roof. The Douglas Optical Com*147pany may continue to advertise frames and mountings and other optical devices by radio, television, classified ads, and by any other commercial means. It will continue to attract the unsuspecting public, who not knowing the difference between an optician, ophthalmologist, or optometrist, will undoubtedly find their way to Dr. Rips, who having prescribed will see that they are returned to Douglas in order to complete the cycle.
The loophole which this judgment leaves in the legislative scheme is wide and in my judgment glaring. It is an unwarranted interference with the police power of the state over a subject with which the state is fully competent to deal. To borrow the language of Mr. Justice Holmes: “We must be cautious about pressing the broad words of the 14th Amendment to a drily logical extreme. Many laws which it would be vain to ask the court to overthrow could be shown, easily enough, to transgress a-scholastic interpretation of one or another of the great guaranties in the Bill of Rights. They more or less limit the liberty of the individual, or they diminish property to a certain extent. We have few scientifically certain criteria of legislation, and as it often is difficult to mark the line where what is called the police power of the states is limited by the Constitution of the United States, judges should be slow to read into the latter a nolumus mutare as against the lawmaking power.” Noble State Bank v. Haskell, 219 U.S. 104, 110, 31 S.Ct. 186, 187, 55 L.Ed. 112.
In cases of this kind we ought to keep in mind the extremely limited restrictions that the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment places upon the states; and. that federal .courts should negatively inject themselves into the policy making powers of the states only in the presence of a palpable abuse of the due process clause of the constitution.
Sections 3 and 4 have uniform application and incidence to all affected thereby. There is no question of equal protection of laws involved. Only the question of due process under the Fourteenth Amendment is involved, and the basis of our jurisdiction is injunctive relief against the enforcement of a state statute with criminal sanctions. Before we rush in to strike down a part of the act, we ought to consider that due process in the state court is afforded to any person who would challenge any provision of the act by exposing himself to the criminal penalties involved. There is no more firmly established or salutary rule than the admonition against striking down the criminal laws of a state by federal injunctive process. Federal injunctive interference with the criminal laws of a state is justified only in exceptional circumstances and with a showing of great and immediate irreparable damage. Otherwise the accused should first set up a defense in the state court where his constitutional rights may be amply protected. See Watson v. Buck, 313 U.S. 387, 400, 61 S.Ct. 962, 85 L.Ed. 1416; Reed v. Lehman, 2 Cir., 91 F.2d 919; Starnes v. City of Milledgeville, D.C., 56 F.Supp. 956.
1 I would certainly stay the federal hand in respect to the enforcement of Sections 3 and 4 of the act. As to Section 2, while I have some misgivings about injunctive relief, I am clear on the issue of constitutionality.