MacDonald v. V.I. Board of Medical Examiners

16 V.I. 356, 1979 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11347
CourtDistrict Court, Virgin Islands
DecidedJune 29, 1979
DocketCivil No. 76-588
StatusPublished

This text of 16 V.I. 356 (MacDonald v. V.I. Board of Medical Examiners) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, Virgin Islands primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
MacDonald v. V.I. Board of Medical Examiners, 16 V.I. 356, 1979 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11347 (vid 1979).

Opinion

CHRISTIAN, Chief Judge

MEMORANDUM

Perhaps, mindful of the saying that the race goes not necessarily to the swift but to those who endure to the end, these three plaintiffs, Malcolm E. MacDonald, Alexander C. Politos and F. Donnell Hart, having successfully weathered the storm of the Board of Medical Examiners’ residence requirement, are still before the Court. They now seek the ultimate prize, that is, an order of the Court directed to the Virgin Islands Board of Medical Examiners and the Commissioner of Health of the Virgin Islands compelling the issuance of a license to each of them to practice their profession, chiropractic.

After considerable haggling back and forth, the applications of these three plaintiffs to be examined for licensure as chiropractors received the favorable consideration of the Virgin Islands Board of Examiners for Medicine and Related Professions. They presented themselves to the Board at the appointed place on November 9th and 10th, 1977, to be examined. All three failed to pass the examination. They now question the validity of that examination and ask that by order of the Court they be licensed to practice.

Plaintiffs’ challenge to the testing is simply stated. The test, they say, was not designed to be administered to prospective chiropractors nor was it appropriate. They contend that it was strictly an examination for medical doctors, which they are not and have never held themselves out as being.

It is beyond question that the examination was designed [359]*359for the purpose plaintiffs assert it was. Dr. Lillian D. Terris, President of the Professional Examination Service with offices at 475 Riverside Drive, New York, New York, under whose auspices the test was prepared, emphatically stated that they fashioned an examination for the testing of physicians. The agreement between the Professional Examination Service and the Board states specifically that “the Service has prepared an examination intended to be used in connection with the licensure of doctors of «medicine”. It remains to be determined, therefore, whether it was lawful and proper for the Board to have subjected these plaintiffs to that type of examination.

In order to better understand and resolve the problems presented, one should answer the question what is chiropractic? The memorandum1 submitted on behalf of the Board defines that word, quoting a publication of the Parker College of Chiropractic in the following terms:

Chiropractic is that science and art which utilizes the inherent recuperative powers of the body, and deals with the relationship between the nervous system and the spinal column, including its immediate articulations, and the role of this relationship in the restoration and maintenance of health.

In Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (Unabridged, 1966) chiropractic is defined as,

a system of healing based upon the theory that disease results from a lack of normal nerve functions and employing treatment by scientific adjustment of body structures (as the spinal column) and utilizing physical therapy when necessary.

The Legislature of the Virgin Islands has defined the practice of that science as

the detecting and correcting by manual means of the structural imbalance, distortion or subluxations in the human body for the purpose of removing nerve interference and effects thereof, where [360]*360such interference is the result of, or related to, distortion, misalignment, or subluxation of or in the vertebral column.2

Defendants do not contend that the examination which plaintiffs sat was not that for a doctor of medicine. Indeed, they could not. Not only for the reasons stated above, but because it is beyond controversy that seven medical doctor applicants sat the same examination as did these plaintiffs, at the very same time. The issue before the Court then, could not be better framed than as expressed by counsel for the Board in his memorandum:

. . . whether it is arbitrary or unreasonable to require a chiropractor to pass an examination designed to test the knowledge and skill of a medical doctor3

For the Board, the answer is an emphatic, no. In the Court’s view, however, all circumstances considered, the answer has to be, and is, in the affirmative. Not only was the Board’s action in so testing these plaintiffs arbitrary and unreasonable, it would appear to be contrary to the then prevailing law, as well.

The Board relies heavily on Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners v. Fife, 162 La. 681, 111 So. 58 (1926) and on the opinion in England v. Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners, 263 F.2d 661 (5th Cir. 1959), cert. denied 359 U.S. 1012. I find those cases to be somewhat inappropriate, however, for there the issue seems to have been whether the State had the right to judge the qualifications of those who would treat the sick. That any state is so empowered is not open to question. Our concern here is with the action of the Board of Examiners who [361]*361seem, in this case, to have ignored the law, either unconsciously or by design. As the England court said in reference to the testing proposed by the state of Louisiana,

[i]f they are appropriate to the calling or profession, and attainable by reasonable study or application, no objection to their validity can be raised because of their stringency or difficulty. It is only when they have no relation to such calling or profession, or are unattainable by such reasonable study and application, that they [tests] can operate to deprive one of his right to pursue a lawful vocation. 263 F.2d at 666.

As the same court went on to point out,

No government has authority to outlaw an apparently useful and beneficial profession with no showing or proof otherwise. 263 F.2d at 673.

Certainly the Legislature of the Virgin Islands made no such attempt. To the contrary, the Legislature recognized and accepted chiropractic, not as the practice of medicine but as one of the related professions. A fortiori, the Board could not lawfully do what the Legislature has not done and could not do. Section 31 of Title 27 recognizes these plaintiffs’ profession by making it

unlawful for any person to engage in the practice of medicine, surgery, osteopathy, optometry, chiropracty, naturopathy or any other system of the treatment of injuries, disease, pain or deformity, or to hold himself forth as a practitioner thereof or to assume the title of Doctor in relation thereto, except as provided in this subchapter.

Going beyond that, the then existing law of the Virgin Islands contemplated separate testing for these different, though related, disciplines. It is provided in § 35(a) that,

[t]he Board shall hold regular examinations . . . for admission to practice medicine or other sciences covered by the provisions of this subchapter. The examination shall cover all subjects as the Board prescribes, which, in accordance with accepted medical standards, are adequate and sufficient for proper evaluation of an

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

Related

Dent v. West Virginia
129 U.S. 114 (Supreme Court, 1889)
Jacobson v. Massachusetts
197 U.S. 11 (Supreme Court, 1905)
Watson v. Maryland
218 U.S. 173 (Supreme Court, 1910)
Graves v. Minnesota
272 U.S. 425 (Supreme Court, 1926)
Williamson v. Lee Optical of Oklahoma, Inc.
348 U.S. 483 (Supreme Court, 1955)
Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners v. Fife
111 So. 58 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1926)
People ex rel. Schoenebaum v. Department of Registration & Education
104 N.E.2d 662 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1952)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
16 V.I. 356, 1979 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11347, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/macdonald-v-vi-board-of-medical-examiners-vid-1979.