Johnson v. District of Columbia, Department of Health

163 A.3d 746, 2017 WL 2989715, 2017 D.C. App. LEXIS 190
CourtDistrict of Columbia Court of Appeals
DecidedJuly 13, 2017
Docket14-AA-1349
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 163 A.3d 746 (Johnson v. District of Columbia, Department of Health) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District of Columbia Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Johnson v. District of Columbia, Department of Health, 163 A.3d 746, 2017 WL 2989715, 2017 D.C. App. LEXIS 190 (D.C. 2017).

Opinions

Concurring opinion by Associate Judge MCLEESE at page 759.

Thompson, Associate Judge:

Petitioner Robert B. Johnson challenges the October 29, 2015, Superseding Decision and Final Order (the “Superseding Decision”) of the District of Columbia Board of Dentistry (the “Board” or the “D.C. Board”) that revoked his license to practice dentistry in the District of Columbia. For the reasons set out below, we remand for the Board to reconsider the sanction it imposed.

I.

On September 27, 2013, the Virginia Board of Dentistry (the “Virginia Board”), after conducting a two-day hearing, issued an order revoking petitioner’s license to [750]*750practice dentistry in Virginia. The order set out the Virginia Board’s findings on charges against petitioner based on the treatment of twenty-two patients over the course of a decade. On June 18, 2014, the D.C. Board issued a Notice of Intent to Take Disciplinary Action (“NOI”) based on the disciplinary action taken in Virginia.1 Based on the Virginia Board’s findings of fact, the NOI selectively charged petitioner with infractions in connection with the treatment of several patients in Virginia.

The D.C. Board conducted a hearing on August 27, 2014, during which it heard testimony from government expert witness Dr. Robert Caldwell, D.D.S., petitioner, and a few of petitioner’s former patients. The Board issued a Decision and Order on November 5,- 2014 (the “Original Decision”), in which it adopted all of the Virginia Board’s findings of fact, including findings relating to acts or omissions by petitioner that were not specified in the NOI, and revoked petitioner’s' license to practice dentistry in the District. Petitioner timely sought review of the Original Decision by this court. On July 16, 2015, this court granted a consent motion to remand the record for further proceedings “in light of [petitioner’s original] brief[,]” which asserted that the Board had erred in a number of respects, primarily by failing to “limit[ ] its inquiry into the specific charges contained in the District’s [NOI] ” and by “failing to consider whether the conduct at issue -in Virginia would have been grounds for taking disciplinary action in the-District[.]”2 Thereafter, on October 29, 2015, the Board issued its post-record-remand Superseding Decision, which is the subject of the instant review.

In the Superseding Decision, the Board adopted only those findings by the Virginia Board that were repeated in the NOI. After disposing of several pending motions (including a motion by petitioner to obtain information concerning a pending investigation by the Board into a complaint brought by a patient in the District of Columbia, which motion the Board denied), the Superseding Decision concluded that petitioner (who, the Board found, “practiced general dentistry and is a general dentist”) committed (in Virginia) the following acts or omissions, which it found are grounds for discipline in the District of Columbia:

• On September 9, 2010, [petitioner] injected into Patient' H’s sinus area [certain] homeopathic substances[;]
• On March 10, 2008 and August 11, 2009, [he] administered a series of injections of unspecified substances to Patient J’s sinus area without documenting the dental need for or diagnosis relating to such treatment;
• On August 18, 2010, [he] replaced the crown on Patient O’s tooth # 15 without documenting,a diagnosis as to the reason .for the replacement^]
• [His] treatment record for Patient R from April 2008 to December 2010 does not contain an initial or updated health history[;]
[751]*751• With respect to Patient T, from approximately 2003 to 2011, [his] records were devoid of an-initial, health history or subsequent updated history[;]
• [His] progress notes for Patient T end on July 22, 2009, but his billing for the patient indicates that he continued to provide treatment to her on multiple occasions after July 22, 2009[;]
• On September 26, 2005, ■ [he] removed amalgam from Patient K’s teeth # 3, 4, -29, 30, and 31 without an adequate dental indication for doing so (or any diagnosis of mercury poisoning, allergy, or related condition by a medical doctor)[;]
• On September 23, 2009, [he] provided injections of procaine, methyl, and folic acid into Patient O’s tonsils for pain. ... [and] [t]here was no documentation of a dental diagnosis for this treatment^]3
, • On July 29, 2009, [he] performed cranial myofascial therapy on Patient S without adequate dental diagnosis for doing so[;]
• [He] also [in 2009] removed amalgam from Patient S’s teeth -without an adequate dental indication for doing so (or any diagnosis of mercury poisoning, allergy or related condition by a medical doctor).4

The Board found that “any of’ the above-described findings—relating. to “practicing outside the scope of his dental license,” “failing to conform to the standards of acceptable conduct and prevailing practice,” and “failure to properly maintain records” as required by regulation in the District of Columbia—-was “sufficient to warrant the imposition of disciplinary action” in the District of Columbia. Citing petitioner’s devotion to a “holistic approach toward the practice of dentistry[,]” the Board also found “that there are no restrictions, fines,, or courses that it could impose that would stop [petitioner] from crossing the line and engaging in practices that are beyond the scope of practice of dentistry and/or that fail to conform to the standards of acceptable conduct and prevailing practices of dentistry in the District of Columbia.” Quoting petitioner’s statement at the close of the hearing that he had “basically stopped doing” procedures when he learned that they were not acceptable in Virginia, the Board found that his testimony, which the Board called “disingenuous and self-serving,” “implie[d] that he continued doing these procedures in some manner or form, as opposed to full-stop cessation[,]” a fact that the Board found “undermine[d] his statements that he would not engage in conduct if he knew that it was not permissible.” The Board found that petitioner “knew or should have known that his conduct was not acceptable and that he ehose to offer these services to his patients anyway.” The Board explicitly [752]*752did not credit, and found “implausible,” petitioner’s testimony to the extent that it “attempt[ed] to convince th[e] Board that he provided services different from the ones documented in his records.”

The Board found that petitioner’s recordkeeping is “unreliable” and that the Board “would be unable to trust the content of [petitioner’s] records if it were to allow [him] to continue to practice and to attempt to monitor his conduct through an audit of his records in the future[,]” and cited the “lack[ ] [of] any assurances that if allowed to maintain his dentist license ... [petitioner] would not continue to practice beyond the scope of his District of Columbia license, fail to conform to the acceptable standards and prevailing practices of the profession, and fail to comply with the District’s recordkeeping requirements.” Finding “no lesser combination of sanctions ...

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Cofield v. District of Columbia Office of Employee Appeals
District of Columbia Court of Appeals, 2023
R.O. v. Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services
199 A.3d 1160 (District of Columbia Court of Appeals, 2019)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
163 A.3d 746, 2017 WL 2989715, 2017 D.C. App. LEXIS 190, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/johnson-v-district-of-columbia-department-of-health-dc-2017.