Osteopathic Physicians & Surgeons v. California Medical Ass'n

224 Cal. App. 2d 378, 36 Cal. Rptr. 641, 1964 Cal. App. LEXIS 1480
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedJanuary 28, 1964
DocketCiv. 26954
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 224 Cal. App. 2d 378 (Osteopathic Physicians & Surgeons v. California Medical Ass'n) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Osteopathic Physicians & Surgeons v. California Medical Ass'n, 224 Cal. App. 2d 378, 36 Cal. Rptr. 641, 1964 Cal. App. LEXIS 1480 (Cal. Ct. App. 1964).

Opinion

WOOD, P. J.

There are six alleged causes of action in the amended and supplemental complaint, as amended (referred to herein as the complaint). Defendants’ motion for judgment on the pleadings as to the first cause of action (for declaratory relief) was granted, and a declaratory judgment in favor of defendants on that cause of action was entered. Defendants’ general demurrers to the five other causes of action were sustained without leave to amend. (When the judge asked if they wished to amend, they did not request such permission.) Judgment of dismissal as to those causes of action was entered. Plaintiffs appeal from the judgment.

The principal basis for the action is the unification or merger agreement entered into between the California Medical Association (referred to as CM A) and the California Osteopathic Association (referred to as COA).

The plaintiffs are Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons of California, a nonprofit California corporation, 1 and 18 doc *381 tors of osteopathy who were opposed to unification of the two professions.

The defendants are the California Medical Association, the California Osteopathic Association, the College of Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons, and several doctors of medicine, doctors of osteopathy, and other persons who were officials or agents of these two associations or of the college.

The first four paragraphs of the complaint, comprising about seven pages of the clerk’s transcript, contain allegations relative to the identification of the parties. It is also alleged in those paragraphs that the defendant California Osteopathic Association, which was incorporated in 1900, receives annual dues from its members amounting to approximately $450,000; it has cash reserves in excess of $717,000, and has real property and other personal property of a value in excess of $1,500,000; it was organized and existed until May 1960 (time of merger) for the sole purpose of maintaining a standard of education and promoting the welfare and influence of the profession of osteopathy; all of the individual plaintiffs (except the ones allegedly expelled) are and for many years have been members of said defendant CCA and entitled to all the rights and privileges of membership therein.

It was also alleged in those four paragraphs that defendant College of Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons was incorporated in 1914 for the principal purpose of maintaining an osteopathic medical and surgical college; from the date of incorporation until May 1961 it accumulated property of the present market value of more than $5,000,000; it receives income from its operation and from investments in excess of $750,000 a year, but its expense of educational operations exceeds $950,000 a year, requiring other income in the approximate minimum amount of $200,000 a year which is supplied by donations.

It was further alleged therein that the American Medical Association is the national organization of allopathic physicians and surgeons; defendant CMA is the constituent society of AMA for California; the Los Angeles County Medical Association is the subordinate local society under CMA; in California there are approximately 23,000 allopathic physi *382 cians and surgeons of which number approximately 17,000 are members of AMA. The American Osteopathic Association represents the profession of osteopathy in the United States; osteopathic physicians and surgeons in California are eligible for membership in AO A, and all the individual plaintiffs and defendants who are osteopaths are and have been members of AOA.

The first cause of action alleges, among other things, that: The allegations of the first four paragraphs of the complaint are realleged therein. An actual controversy exists between plaintiffs and defendants (except certain trustees of the college—COPS) concerning the construction and validity of the purported merger agreement. That agreement was signed by officers of COA and CMA about March 11 and 18, 1961, respectively, and purportedly ratified by the CMA delegates on May 3, 1961, and by the COA delegates on May 17, 1961. Defendant COPS (college) accepted the agreement by resolution of its board of trustees on May 24, 1961. Osteopathy is a separate school of the healing art and profession, embracing education equal in scope in all respects to allopathic medicine, but differing fundamentally therefrom by force of vital features of special emphasis, including emphasis on functions of musculoskeletal structure, and on natural curative resources, and manipulative therapy. The provisions of California law governing physicians and surgeons are equally applicable to osteopaths and allopaths, except that under a 1922 initiative measure the licensing and discipline of osteopaths is vested in the Board of Osteopathic Examiners rather than in the Board of Medical Examiners. One out of every twenty physicians and surgeons in the United States is an osteopath, and in California the ratio is about one in ten. (There are allegations regarding: osteopathy as nationally organized; the number of osteopathic hospitals in the United States and in California; the osteopathic schools which are being operated; comparable standards of osteopaths and allopaths in certifying hospitals and medical specialists; comparable publications and research of the two professions; the similarities and differences in the teaching of the two professions; the degree of D.O. being granted by osteopathic schools, and the degree of M.D. being awarded by medical schools; the public significance of those degrees with respect to the amount of training and education required to obtain them; competition and elimination of osteopathy have been threatened and *383 attempted by the activities of defendants herein complained of.)

Since 1959 all defendants (except certain COPS trustees) have conspired and agreed to do the following things in California: to eliminate the osteopathic profession; to prevent competition in the practice of medicine and to control and monopolize such practice, by combining their capital and power; to restrain the trade and property rights of all osteopathic doctors, teachers of osteopathy, and schools and hospitals teaching osteopathy, who might decline to join the concert of action of defendants; to cause to be eliminated as an osteopathic medical college the only osteopathic medical school in California, the defendant COPS, and to convert it to an allopathic medical college; to cause said college to issue, barter and sell medical degrees; to all such ends to employ funds and properties of CCA in manners violating its charter and violating law. Said conspiracy is one to restrain and to monopolize trade within the meaning of division 7, part 2, chapter 2, of the Business and Professions Code (§§16700 et seq. — entitled “Combinations in Restraint of Trade”). From the outset of osteopathy in 1871 the AMA, on behalf of the allopathic profession, has falsely branded the osteopathic profession as a “cultist” medical practice, and has condemned all osteopathic doctors as pseudopractitioners, inadequately educated, and unfit to be regarded as physicians and surgeons.

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Bluebook (online)
224 Cal. App. 2d 378, 36 Cal. Rptr. 641, 1964 Cal. App. LEXIS 1480, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/osteopathic-physicians-surgeons-v-california-medical-assn-calctapp-1964.