Court Opinion

ID: 9753106
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 18:57:49.560496+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:29.932607
License: Public Domain

Shea, J.
(dissenting). The plaintiff was ordered to appear before the state board of examiners in optometry to answer a eomplaint that he was “aiding or abetting the practice of optometry by an unlicensed person.” General Statutes §20-133 (e). The board, after a hearing, suspended the plaintiff’s license to practice. The Superior Court dismissed his appeal, and from that decision he has appealed to this court. A majority of the court have decided that the board lacked the power and competence to suspend the plaintiff’s license to practice although the board found that he was guilty of the charge.
The practice of optometry is defined to be the employment of any means other than drugs for the measurement of the power of vision and the adaptation of lenses for the aid thereof. General Statutes § 20-127. The majority concede, as indeed they must, that a corporation cannot qualify for a license to practice optometry. § 20-130; Lieberman v. Connecticut State Board of Examiners in Optometry, 130 Conn. 344, 352, 34 A.2d 213. Without a license, a corporation cannot practice optometry. § 20-138a. *306Yet that is precisely what the corporation in this case is doing, and the majority of the court sanction and approve that practice.
Among the facts found by the board and important to the decision of this case are the following: The plaintiff is employed by a corporation as an optometrist to render optometrical services to its customers. The corporation pays him a weekly salary, fixes the fees for the work done by him, collects the money for his services and credits the income to its gross corporate income. The corporation has a jewelry store and advertises as “opticians,” but no licensed optician is employed in its store. Eyeglasses sold by the corporation are for the most part prescribed by the plaintiff. All of the equipment of the optometrical department in the store is owned by the corporation, which purchases its ophthalmic materials from another company which is owned by the family which operates the corporation. The stationery, prescription blanks and appointment cards used by the plaintiff as an admitted employee of the corporation do not represent the true relationship existing between the plaintiff and his employer.
From these facts it is clear that the plaintiff is under the supervision and control of the corporation. He is but the agent or servant of his master. He owes his primary allegiance and obedience to the corporation as his employer. The interests of the patients and clients who come to him must of necessity be secondary. For the sake of self-preservation, he will make every effort to satisfy the wishes and demands of his employer, who may dismiss him should he fail to produce the measure of profit expected from his services. The plaintiff admits that he is an employee of the corporation. *307It is fundamental that the acts of agents or employees of a corporation are the acts of the corporation. 19 C.J.S., Corporations, §§ 993, 999. “The agent of a corporation stands in place of the corporation itself in the line of his assigned duties, and acts within his authorized employment are the acts of the corporation.” 19 C.J.S., Corporations, § 993. The plaintiff, the agent of Michaels, is engaged in the practice of optometry in the line of duties assigned to him by his employer, and the acts performed by him are the acts of the corporation. It follows, therefore, that the corporation is engaged in the practice of optometry. Since the corporation cannot legally conduct such a practice, it cannot do indirectly what it is forbidden to do directly. This conclusion is in accord with the substantial weight of authority in this country. 13 Am. Jur., Corporations, § 837; 41 Am. Jur., Physicians and Surgeons, § 28. “It is generally held that in the absence of express statutory authority, a corporation may not engage in the practice of optometry either directly or indirectly through the employment of duly registered optometrists.” 13 Am. Jur., Corporations, § 837. Of the cases cited in the majority opinion, not less than sixteen support this view.
The sole charge against the plaintiff is that, as a licensed optometrist, he aided or abetted an unlicensed person in the practice of optometry. Consequently, our consideration must be restricted to the portion of § 20-133 which relates to the charge on which the plaintiff was presented. For some unexplainable reason, the majority of the court have failed to discuss the specific charge made against the plaintiff. Aside from a passing reference to the language of subsection (e) of §20-133, the *308majority give no consideration to this subsection, though it forms the basis of the complaint, but rather embark on an extended, strained construction of another sentence in the same statute, a sentence which has no direct bearing whatever on the case. It is true that § 20-133 also provides that “[n]o person except a licensed optometrist shall operate an optometrical office.” The plaintiff, however, is not charged with a violation of this portion of the statute. The corporation, as an unlicensed person, is not a party to these proceedings, and the question whether it has violated the law is not now before us. Hence, it is entirely beside the point to engage in a construction of the language of this portion of the statute. The majority ask, “Does the quoted language, read in the light of other provisions of chapter 380, necessarily mean that a licensed optometrist, employed, as was the plaintiff under the circumstances of this case, to operate an optometrical office furnished and equipped by the employer, is necessarily aiding or abetting the practice of optometry by his employer in violation of the statute?” If it is assumed, though not conceded for a moment, that the language pertaining to the operation of an office by an unlicensed person has any bearing whatever on this case, the clear ringing answer given by the legislature to the inquiry of the majority is in the affirmative.
The prohibition of the statute includes every person who does not have a license. The term “person” includes a corporation. Greneral Statutes § 1-1. The word “operate” as used in the statute must be taken in its plain, ordinary, accepted meaning. “Operate” means to “put into or continue in operation or activity ... to conduct ... or carry on, or to work.” State v. Woolley, 88 Conn. 715, 718, *30992 A. 662. “Operate” means to “produce an effect ... to manage and put or keep in operation whether with personal effort or not (operated a grocery store).” Webster, Third New International Dictionary. When we apply the language of % 20-133 to the facts of this case, it cannot be doubted that Michaels is operating an optometrical office. In fact, the plaintiff in his appeal to the Superior Court alleged that the corporation “maintains an optometrical office fully equipped with modern scientific instruments and appliances” and that he, the plaintiff, is employed by the corporation. Moreover, the corporation itself joined the plaintiff in making these same allegations when, in a separate proceeding, the plaintiff and the corporation sought to enjoin the defendant board from revoking or suspending the plaintiff’s license on the charges filed against him in the present case. Mack v. Connecticut State Board of Examiners in Optometry, Superior Court, Fairfield County, No. 109,971. From the pleadings in that proceeding, it clearly appears that the plaintiff and the corporation both alleged that the corporation maintained an optometrical office. It is merely a play on words to assert that the corporation “maintains” an optometrical office but does not “operate” one. There can be no doubt that the corporation maintains or, in the language of the statute, “operates” an optometrical office. It has no license to do so and is acting contrary to law. These observations, however, are not pertinent to our present inquiry. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that the majority of the court have resorted to a discussion of the word “operate,” as used in this portion of the statute, for the purpose of creating an ambiguity. Courts resort to rules of construction for the pur*310pose of resolving an ambiguity, never for the purpose of creating one. 50 Am. Jur., Statutes, § 226. Any construction of the portion of the statute which is not involved in the charge against the plaintiff is wholly unwarranted, beclouds the issues and leads to a result which constitutes, in effect, legislation by judicial fiat.
The majority have referred to the repeated refusals of the legislature to amend § 20-133. It is argued that the legislation which was proposed alerted the legislature to the possibility that optometrists might be employed to operate an optometrical office owned by an unlicensed person. This argument is indeed an ingenious one. Since 1939, not less than thirteen attempts have been made to amend the law. Examination of every one of the bills brought to the court’s attention indicates that nine of the proposals, if adopted, would have made legal what the majority of this court now declare to have been legal under the statute existing since 1939. From 1941 through 1961, these nine proposed amendments were based on the assumption that a corporation could not engage in the practice of optometry by employing the services of a licensed optometrist. Two of the remaining proposals would have made it unlawful for an unlicensed person to practice optometry by engaging the services of a licensed optometrist on a salary, commission or sublease basis but would not have affected any such relationship existing at the time the legislation went into effect. S.B. 667, 1945 Sess.; H.B. 3693, 1961 Sess. The obvious purpose of these last two proposals was to legalize any unlawful relationships then existing. Out of all the amendments proposed, only two contained genuine prohibitions against the employer-employee rela*311tionship. Sub. for S.B. 821, 1941 Sess.; S.B. 996, 1959 Sess. Manifestly, almost all of the proposed amendments would alter existing law to legalize the employment of a licensed optometrist by an unlicensed person. These proposals, in the form submitted, could alert the legislature to the prohibition of such a practice under existing law and to the need of amending the law if there was any intention to allow such employment. But to suggest that the proposed legislation alerted the legislature to the possibility that such employment by an unlicensed person was already legal does not withstand rational or logical analysis. Clearly, the interpretation of § 20-133 by the majority of this court differs sharply from the construction placed on the statute by the legislators over a protracted period of time. If, as this court now holds, the law always permitted an unlicensed person to operate an optometrical office by employing the services of a licensed optometrist, then by what peculiar turn of events would it be necessary to amend the law to permit that very practice? It has been correctly stated that the legislature took no action on the proposals to amend the law. The legislature had declared the law in plain, clear, unambiguous language, and it had a right to expect that the law would be observed and enforced by the courts.
References made by the majority to any lack of a showing of unprofessional conduct on the part of the plaintiff are of no significance whatever, since that matter was not material to the issue presented by the charge that the plaintiff was aiding or abetting the practice of optometry by an unlicensed person. Our function on this appeal is to determine whether the board acted illegally in suspending the plaintiff’s license. We do not retry the case. Our *312decision must not be based on any erroneous assumptions, assumptions without foundation in the record before us. Thus, the failure of the board to make certain findings relative to other phases of the plaintiff’s conduct, phases which do not pertain to the charge involved, is beyond the scope of our inquiry. They have no place in our consideration.
The chapter of the statutes regulating the practice of optometry clearly recognizes it as a profession. General Statutes § 20-128. The board is authorized to make and enforce such regulations as it deems necessary to maintain proper professional and ethical standards for practitioners of this profession. This calling, originally regarded as a trade, has increasingly taken on the aspects of a learned profession. Lieberman v. Connecticut State Board of Examiners in Optometry, 130 Conn. 344, 347, 34 A.2d 213. “It is a matter of common knowledge that where a person suffers from defective vision the use of eyeglasses not correctly adapted to remedy the defect may seriously aggravate it and, because of the resultant eye strain, may bring about nervous and even physical disorders, with accompanying discomfort and loss of efficiency.” Sage-Allen Co. v. Wheeler, 119 Conn. 667, 677, 179 A. 195. “It may be that the standards of professional conduct which should govern the practice of optometry are not regarded as in all respects the same as those which govern the practice of a physician. . . . Still, in view of the recognized character which the former profession has today, there are certain fundamental requirements common to both. One of these is that the patient who resorts to an optometrist for advice and help is entitled to the same undivided loyalty that he should receive from a physician.” Lieberman v. Connecticut State Board of Ex*313aminers in Optometry, supra, 349. “Professionally, an optometrist should have no interest in any way in who fills his prescriptions. It is manifestly apparent that the situation here prevailing can not permit the freedom in the optometrists which should exist in purely professional men.” Rowe v. Burt’s, Inc., 17 Ohio Op. 1, 3, 31 N.E.2d 725. “The ethics of any profession is based upon personal or individual responsibility. One who practices a profession is responsible directly to his patient or his client. Hence he cannot properly act in the practice of his vocation as an agent of a corporation or business partnership whose interests in the very nature of the case are commercial in character.” Ezell v. Ritholz, 188 S.C. 39, 51, 198 S.E. 419. Connecticut has applied this principle to the legal profession. In Slate Bar Assn. v. Connecticut Bank & Trust Co., 145 Conn. 222, 235, 140 A.2d 863, we said: “As . . . [a corporation] cannot practice law directly, it cannot do so indirectly by employing competent lawyers to practice for it, since that would be an evasion which the law will not tolerate. Matter of Co-operative Law Co., 198 N.Y. 479, 483, 92 N.E. 15.” No sound reason can be advanced why the same principle should not be applied with equal emphasis to the profession of optometry.
Optometry is no longer a mere incident to a merchandising business. It has become a real science, devoted to the measurement, accommodation, and refractory powers of the eye without the use of drugs. It is one of the more important professions and, to prepare for the proper practice of optometry, extensive education and training are required. Legislators throughout the entire country have recognized that the proper practice of this profession is of the most vital importance to the public *314and have made due provision for its regulation. Seifert v. Buhl Optical Co., 276 Mich. 692, 698, 268 N.W. 784. Our own legislature has kept pace with the progress made in this field. The board was given authority by law to take the action which it did in this case, and the facts fully justified the suspension of the plaintiff’s license.
In my view, the trial court did not err in dismissing the plaintiff’s appeal.