Court Opinion

ID: 9791677
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:15:55.99271+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:37.869988
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Day,
dissenting:
I • dissent.
•The.majority states that the scope of the practice of a member of. the healing professions — listing among them chiropractors— is limited by law. I agree.. But we have under. consideration in this case not a legislative prohibition against chiropractors signing death certificates but *403a rule and regulation of the Board of Health which extends, in my opinion, far beyond the Board’s power. That the rule does exclude a class of persons qualified to evaluate the information for purposes of vital statistics may easily be demonstrated by the legislative acts quoted in the majority opinion.
For example, C.R.S. 1963, 66-8-5, states, inter alia,:
“Midwives shall not sign certificates of death * * That’s plain language! The legislature used no such prohibitive language against chiropractors in any of its enactments. In the absence of such plain prohibition I find no disqualifying legislation. The chiropractor is required to take the examination provided for in C.R.S. 1963, 91-5-1, et seq. In that act those engaged in the healing arts — which everyone agrees includes the practice of chiropractic — are deemed to be those persons practicing “any system for the treatment, operation, diagnosis, prescription or practice for the prevention, ascertainment, cure, relief, palliation, adjustment or correction of any human disease, ailment, deformity, injury or unhealthy or abnormal physical or mental condition.” (Emphasis added.) C.R.S. 1963, 91-5-3.
I think the scope of the qualifications which are required to be demonstrated to be able to practice in the field is the true test. For example, there are medical practitioners who have limited the scope of their practice, perhaps only to the eyes or ears, and have been so engaged for years. Yet who would say that they could not sign a death certificate in view of the basic qualifications required on their admission to practice.
In other legislation, C.R.S. 1963, 23-1-2(1), defines chiropractic as including the diagnosing and , analyzing of human ailments. Therefore, anyone holding a certificate from the State of Colorado which declares to the public that he is qualified to and capable of diagnosing and analyzing human ailments can give the information required in C.R.S. 1963, 66-8-6(1) (r) —“Cause of death, including the primary and immediate causes, and con*404tributory causes or complications, if any, and duration of each.”
C.R.S. 1963, 66-8-7, which is the section the State Board of Health has attempted to interpret by its rules and regulations was first enacted in 1907 and amended in 1957. The new act providing for the licensing of those engaging in the practice of chiropractic in Colorado was passed in 1959. It is my considered judgment that this act, enacted after the amendment of 66-8-7, declaring a chiropractor qualified to diagnose and analyze human ailments hardly comports with an interpretation of “non-medical attendance.”
It is axiomatic that the laws dealing in similar matters so varied and complex as the voluminous Public Health Act and the statutes regulating the licensing of professions should be read in pari materia to avoid legislative conflict. There is no inherent power in the Department of Health to promulgate rules and regulations which nullify the license which the legislature has granted to the class of persons attempted to be excluded here.
Additionally, it should be considered that C.R.S. 1963, 68-8-6 (t) provides for “Special information concerning deaths in hospitals and institutions * * This court can take judicial notice of the fact that there is in Denver a chiropractic hospital functioning and duly licensed by the State Department of Health under the powers conferred in C.R.S. 1963, 66-4-1, et seq. The same Department of Health which has promulgated the rule and regulation, here under attack in that case many years ago attempted to deny a license to operate to that particular hospital. This court said in Spears Free Clinic and Hospital v. State Board of Health, 122 Colo. 147, 220 P.2d 872, that the department was without statutory authority to deny to the institution the right to open and operate as a hospital. Since no medical doctor practices in that hospital, it is difficult to see how the information required of that particular hospital could be complied with if those *405in attendance are not permitted to fill out and sign the certificate requiring that information.
Additionally, the rule and regulation of the State Board of Health is incongruous when one takes cognizance of the fact that the coroner who is to be summoned in the event of “death without medical attendance” is usually an undertaker, and in some instances a layman elected in the partisan county election. If an undertaker or lay-coroner is qualified to make out a death certificate, then it does not make sense to say that one who is required to demonstrate the qualifications demanded of a chiropractor cannot certify to such information.
I would hold the Health Board rule to be in conflict with the license granted to chiropractors under C.R.S. 1963, 23-1-2(1), et seq. and therefore void.