People v. Fowler

84 P.2d 326, 32 Cal. App. Supp. 2d 737, 1938 Cal. App. LEXIS 428
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedOctober 20, 1938
DocketCr. A. 1507
StatusPublished
Cited by32 cases

This text of 84 P.2d 326 (People v. Fowler) 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
People v. Fowler, 84 P.2d 326, 32 Cal. App. Supp. 2d 737, 1938 Cal. App. LEXIS 428 (Cal. Ct. App. 1938).

Opinion

SHAW, P. J.

The charge here is that defendant, in violation of section 2141 of the Business and Professions Code, practiced “a system and mode of treating the sick and afflicted”, and “diagnosed, treated, operated for and prescribed for an ailment, blemish, deformity, disease, disfigurement, dis *Supp. 740 order, injury and other mental and physical condition” of a named person, without having a valid, unrevoked certificate authorizing him to do so, issued by the board of medical examiners or the board of osteopathic examiners. At the trial it was stipulated that at the times referred to in the complaint defendant was a chiropractor duly licensed to practice under the Chiropractic Act hereinafter mentioned and that he was not otherwise licensed to practice medicine, surgery or osteopathy. In his defense he contended that what he did was authorized by his chiropractic license.

Section 2141 of the Business and Professions Code, on which the complaint is based, reads as follows: “Any person, who practices or attempts to practice, or who advertises or holds himself out as practicing, any system or mode of treating the sick or afflicted in this State, or who diagnoses, treats, operates for, or prescribes for any ailment, blemish, deformity, disease, disfigurement, disorder, injury, or other mental or physical condition of any person, without having at the time of so doing a valid, unrevoked certificate as provided in this chapter, is guilty of a misdemeanor.” By other provisions of the chapter of this code in which section 2141 is found (secs. 2005, 2135), the certificate referred to in that section may, according to the circumstances of the case, be issued either by the board of medical examiners provided for in the code or by the board of osteopathic examiners set up and governed by another statute. These provisions made it necessary for the complaint to negative (as it did) the possession by defendant of a certificate from either board. No corresponding provision is made by the code regarding the board of chiropractic examiners, hereinafter referred to.

So far the language of the Business and Professions Code alone is concerned, the complaint here is obviously sufficient to charge a violation thereof. But appellant contends that by reason of certain provisions of a separate and independent enactment known as the Chiropractic Act (enacted in 1922 as an initiative measure; Stats. 1923, p. lxxxviii, Peering’s Gen. Laws, 1937 ed., Act 4811) the complaint must, in order to charge a public offense, negative the possession by the defendant of a license issued under that act by the board of chiropractic examiners, or else allege that the acts done were not such as could lawfully be done under such a license. A complaint identical, for present purposes, with this one was *Supp. 741 treated by this court as sufficient to charge a public offense in People v. Schuster, (1932) 122 Cal. App. (Supp.) 790, 794 [10 Pac. (2d) 204] ; but since the point now made was not raised or considered in that ease, it is not to be regarded as a direct authority here. On further consideration we are satisfied that the complaint here is sufficient.

While the Business and Professions Code was enacted in 1937 (Stats. 1937, p. 1230 et seq.), it is but a codification, with little change, of previously existing statutes which were in terms repealed by it, including a former act known as the “State Medical Practice Act” (Deering’s Gen. Laws, 1931 ed., Act 4807). Section 17 of that act as amended in 1917 (Stats. 1917, p. 114) was in force when the Chiropractic Act was adopted, and it then contained language substantially the same as that of section 2141 of the Business and Professions Code, but the certificate referred to in section 17 could be issued, according to other provisions of the act, by the board of medical examiners only. That language was carried into all subsequent amendments of said section 17 and remained in force as a part of it when the above-mentioned code was enacted. Section 2 of the Business and Professions Code provides that its provisions “in so far as they are substantially the same as existing statutory provisions relating to the same subject matter shall be construed as restatements and continuations thereof, and not ás new enactments.” The same rule applies to all amending statutes. (See Pol. Code, sec. 325; Corporation of America v. Johnson, (1936) 7 Cal. (2d) 295, 305, 306 [60 Pac. (2d) 417].) In view of these rules relating to the construction of codifying and amending statutes, the substantial question presented now for decision on the sufficiency of the complaint is in nowise different from what it would have been had it arisen immediately after the adoption of the Chiropractic Act.

Taking the matter up as it presented itself at that time, we find a statute (the Medical Practice Act) declaring it a misdemeanor for any person to practice a system or mode of treating the sick or afflicted, etc., without a certificate from the state board of medical examiners, and a separate, distinct and subsequent statute (the Chiropractic Act), providing (in terms to be discussed later) that a license authorizing the holder to practice the particular mode of treatment therein described and in part designated as chiropractic may be is *Supp. 742 sued by the board of chiropractic examiners therein provided for. This latter statute by implication and by the terms of section 18 thereof repealed the provisions of the Medical Practice Act so far as the latter might conflict with the provisions of the Chiropractic Act as applied to licensed chiropractors. (Pe ople v. Schuster, supra, (1932) 122 Cal. App. (Supp.) 790, 794.)

No doubt the possession of a license under the Chiropractic Act by a defendant who is charged with violating the provision of the Medical Practice Act (or Business and Professions Code) here involved affords him a complete defense, so long as he has not exceeded the authority of that license, but it does not follow that the complaint under the Medical Practice Act (or the code) must negative his possession of such a license. The lack of such a license is not stated by the last-mentioned act (or the code) as a part of the definition of the offense there denounced. The question of such a license enters into the case only by reason of the separate Chiropractic Act. No part of the language of the Medical Practice Act was expressly repealed, or removed or deleted from that act by the Chiropractic Act. The language on which the complaint herein is founded still remained in the Medical Practice Act after the enactment of the Chiropractic Act, and it is now in the code. The operative effect of the Chiropractic Act is the same as that of an exception or limiting proviso placed in the same act with a prohibition but not made a part of the definition of the offense. It is the rule in such matters that it is not necessary in a criminal charge to negative an exception or proviso which is not a part of the definition or description of the offense. (31 Cor. Jur. 720-725; 14 Cal. Jur. 52, 53; People v. H, Jevne Co., (1919) 179 Cal. 621, 625, 626 [178 Pac. 517]; Ex parte Hornef, (1908) 154 Cal. 355, 360 [97 Pac. 891]; People v. Kinsley, (1931) 118 Cal. App. 593, 598 [5 Pac.

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Bluebook (online)
84 P.2d 326, 32 Cal. App. Supp. 2d 737, 1938 Cal. App. LEXIS 428, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-fowler-calctapp-1938.