Mower v. State Department of Health

142 A. 473, 108 Conn. 74, 1928 Conn. LEXIS 163
CourtSupreme Court of Connecticut
DecidedJune 18, 1928
StatusPublished
Cited by22 cases

This text of 142 A. 473 (Mower v. State Department of Health) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Connecticut primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mower v. State Department of Health, 142 A. 473, 108 Conn. 74, 1928 Conn. LEXIS 163 (Colo. 1928).

Opinion

Maltbie, J.

Prior to January, 1924, the appellant had been examined and found qualified to practice medicine by the Connecticut Eclectic Medical Examining Board, had received from it certificates to that effect, and from the State Department of Health a certificate of registration, commonly called a license, authorizing him to practice. In January, 1924, upon the request of all members of the Examining Board, the State Department of Health revoked this license upon the ground that it had been procured by fraud. Prom this action of the State Department of Health he appealed to the Superior Court, in accordance with the provisions of §2860 of the General Statutes, then in force, and that court dismissed the appeal. From this judgment he has appealed to this court.

The appeal from the revocation of his license by the State Department of Health was taken to the Superior Court for Hartford County. At the same time several appeals were taken by persons whose licenses had also been revoked, some to the Superior Court for Hartford County, others to the Superior Court for other counties. While these appeals were pending the legislature amended §2860 of the General Statutes, adding a provision which authorized any judge of the Superior Court upon motion, if in his opinion the cause of justice required it, to order any appeal pending in that court to be transferred to the Superior Court in any other county and expressly stating that this provision should apply to all appeals pending at the time of the passage of the Act. Thereafter this appeal, with several others from three counties, was ordered transferred to the Superior Court in New Haven County, where a number of like appeals were then pending. The Act was ap *77 proved May 2d, 1927, and took effect upon its passage. On June 16th another Act amendatory of §2860 was approved, which contained no provision for transferring appeals. Public Acts of 1927, Chap. 317, § 14. It had no provision that it should take effect upon its passage, and hence it did not take effect until July 1st, 1927. Public Acts of 1921, Chap. 350. The appellant claims that the Superior Court in New Haven County was without right to proceed with the appeals which were transferred to it because the Act authorizing the transfer was repealed before they were tried. But all the transfers were actually made while the earlier Act was in effect, so that, when the later Act became effective, they were all pending in the Superior Court for New Haven County, and the later Act certainly cannot be construed as intended to remand them back to the county from which they came. The appellant also claims that the first Act was passed for the temporary and special purpose of transferring these particular appeals; but we cannot adopt that view as the basis of our decision because the Act is general in terms and may well represent a general intent in the mind of the legislature at the time it was passed, though in the later Act, a revision of the whole law concerning the practice of the healing arts, a changed purpose was given effect. Moreover, the appellant speaks of the transfer as effecting a change in jurisdiction; but it is merely one in venue, for the Superior Court is one court for the whole State. Allis v. Hall, 76 Conn. 322, 327, 56 Atl. 637. Hence, the question not being jurisdictional, and not having been raised in the lower court, it is not now open to the appellant to raise it here. 40 Cyc. 111.

The appellant’s license was revoked under the provisions of §2859 of the General Statutes, then in force, which authorized the State Department of Health, upon the written request of all members of the Exam *78 ining Board, to revoke á license which had been procured by fraud. That statute contained no requirement as to notice or hearing before revocation and there was neither in this case. By reason of these facts the appellant claims that he was deprived of due process of law, in contravention of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. Upon his appeal to the Superior Court the appellant appeared and the case was fully heard, the issue of fraud in the procuring of his license being one of the litigated questions. Pending the decision of the appeal he was permitted to continue practicing medicine. In Brein v. Connecticut Eclectic Medical Examining Board, 103 Conn. 65, 130 Atl. 289, we had before us the appeal of one whose license to practice medicine was revoked at the same time and under much the same circumstances as was the appellant’s and one of the questions presented was whether the revocation of the license by the State Board of Health, acting under §2859 of the General Statutes, without notice or hearing, was in deprivation of due process of law. We held that it was not. While the record of that case does not disclose any specific reference in the claims of the appellant to the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, the broad language of our opinion and the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States cited in it make it futile to claim that the effect and bearing of that Amendment upon the issues was not involved and determined, even though the appellant did not so specifically claim the violation of the Amendment as to warrant the Supreme Court of the United States in reviewing our decision. Brein v. State Department of Health, 273 U. S. 640, 47 Sup. Ct. 97; Sayward v. Denny, 158 U. S. 180, 15 Sup. Ct. 777. We held that the appellant in that case had not been deprived of due process of law and there is no *79 occasion to re-examine the matter in behalf of this appellant, who, as regards this question, occupies an identical position.

The remaining reasons of appeal are based upon claimed errors in the admission of testimony. The law in force when the appellant received his license provided that no applicant should be eligible to examination until he had presented to the medical examining board satisfactory evidence that he had received a diploma from some legally incorporated and reputable medical college. General Statutes, §§2855, 2857. It is found that in his application to the examining board he represented that he was a bona fide graduate of the St. Louis College of Physicians and Surgeons of St. Louis, that it was a reputable institution, and that it required a course of study of eclectic medicine of not less than two years. The contention of the State authorities on the trial was that these representations were false and fraudulent and that his license was procured by the fraud so practiced. For the purpose of proving that the St. Louis college was not a reputable medical institution, they introduced Doctor Waite as a witness, a man thoroughly qualified to give his opinion as to the character and adequacy of the institution and of the instruction which it gave its students. In the course of his testimony, he was permitted, over the appellant’s objection, to testify as to statements made to him by its dean and certain of its instructors. In general these statements indicated that the facilities of the college were inadequate and the instruction given very deficient, that many degrees were issued in absentia

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Bluebook (online)
142 A. 473, 108 Conn. 74, 1928 Conn. LEXIS 163, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mower-v-state-department-of-health-conn-1928.