Court Opinion

ID: 9630173
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:03:34.186728+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:32.950151
License: Public Domain

Finley, J.
(dissenting)—On a motion for a new trial, the trial judge was of the view that the giving of instruction No. 17 (quoted in the majority opinion) was prejudicial error. He granted a new trial. I think his action was eminently proper. The majority take the view that instruction No. 17 was not prejudicial, that it properly stated the law of this state. I disagree. For a discussion of the problem here involved, see an article entitled, “The Standard of Care of the Drugless Healer,” 27 Wash. L. Rev. 38, 59.
The legislature of this state has clearly recognized the existence of several branches of the healing arts. It has provided specifically for the licensing of practitioners in the several branches. But the legislature has not classified the branches of the healing arts on the basis of levels or degrees of learning or competence or in any preferential sequence, indicating that one branch is the highest, another the lowest, with others in between the two extremes, in so far as learning, competence, and the ability to treat human maladies are concerned. It is true there are certain restrictions, in that each branch is expected and required to practice within the scope of its particular philosophy, and to use techniques in the treatment of disease that are generally approved and used by the particular branch. On the other *831hand, instruction No. 17 characterizes the medical branch as the highest branch of the healing arts. Implicit in this is the suggestion that other branches of the healing arts are somewhat suspect, and that practitioners therein are somewhat less competent and to be regarded with some apprehension, to say the least. I think the reference in instruction No. 17 to “the highest level of medical science,” and the implications to be deduced therefrom, are inappropriate and were prejudicial error in so far as respondent is concerned.
The pertinent question is not whether one branch of the healing arts is the highest or not, but whether there is a generally recognized specific for the treatment of diabetes, and whether respondent could have used it, or was culpable for preventing its use, in the treatment of his patient. A closely related question is whether the treatment administered to Mrs. Lucile Cook by the respondent was generally approved and used by the chiropractic branch of the healing arts. In my opinion, an instruction framed along these lines would have been proper, whereas instruction No. 17 was not.
It is true that respondent was not licensed to practice in any branch of the healing arts. However, he was charged and stands convicted of practicing (a) medicine, and (b) chiropractic, without a license, and he is not appealing therefrom. From reading the record, it appears to me that respondent used very bad judgment—in fact, it was about the worst possible— in attempting to treat Mrs. Cook. But this consideration is a matter for the jury, and the significant question for the court to decide in this appeal is whether the giving of instruction No. 17 was prejudicial error.
If instruction No. 17 is to become the law of this state, then nonmedical practitioners of the healing arts must refrain from treating their patients, or, in the uncomfortable alternative, must practice their profession at their own peril, whenever the medical profession recognizes a different method of treatment for a particular human ailment or *832malady. Obviously, there are many instances where the recognized medical method of treatment is different from the method of treatment recognized by other branches of the healing arts. To be safe, and to conform to the law, as stated in the majority opinion, a nonmedical practitioner of the healing arts, although licensed, would have to limit his practice to those ailments for which there is no cure known and recognized by the medical profession.
For the reasons indicated, I dissent.