Suarez v. Junta Dental Examinadora

580 F. Supp. 334, 1984 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19957
CourtDistrict Court, D. Puerto Rico
DecidedJanuary 31, 1984
DocketCiv. No. 82-1306(CC)
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 580 F. Supp. 334 (Suarez v. Junta Dental Examinadora) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Puerto Rico primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Suarez v. Junta Dental Examinadora, 580 F. Supp. 334, 1984 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19957 (prd 1984).

Opinion

OPINION AND ORDER

CEREZO, District Judge.

A group of dentists who completed dental studies in foreign academic institutions but who do not have the license required to practice dental surgery in Puerto Rico filed this civil rights action (42 U.S.C. § 1983) against the Board of Dental Examiners of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and its members claiming that the Board’s refusal to permit them to take the practical and theoretical examinations required to practice dental surgery in Puerto Rico violated their rights under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the United States Constitution. They contend that the [336]*336Board’s refusal on grounds that they did not graduate from an acceptable institution of dental studies is capricious and unreasonable for on previous occasions it has permitted graduates from non-accredited schools to practice dental surgery in Puerto Rico. They seek an award of damages and injunctive relief ordering the Board to permit them to take the examinations. The merits of plaintiffs’ constitutional action have been challenged in a motion for summary judgment in which defendants urge that the Board’s action is based on a legitimate statutory requirement which they are bound to follow and that the only time that the Board has allowed graduates from non-accredited institutions to practice dental surgery was in response to special laws enacted to deal with a need at a particular time to provide dental services in Puerto Rico: Law No. 104 of June 26, 1962, Law No. 120 of June 8,1967 and Law No. 136 of June 26, 1968. See: Comments to P.R. Laws Ann., Tit. 20 Sec. 89 and Tit. 24 Sec. 290-297. Plaintiffs counter these arguments with general statements such as that the Board, by accepting graduates from non-accredited dental schools, established a practice which should have been uniformly applied to them and that the Board's “operational procedure” is so disorganized that it is “repugnant to the most basic principles of constitutional law and by so doing have been and are violating plaintiffs’ rights without due process of law.” Save for the statutory exceptions, they do not point to any specific unequal treatment afforded to others situated in their same category (i.e., graduates from non-accredited dental schools) or to a particular misuse or abuse of certain procedures nor do they challenge the constitutional validity of the laws which the Board is entrusted to apply. They tacitly agree with defendants on the lack of genuine factual controversies yet disagree on the interpretation of how the law should be applied to the undisputed facts for in their opposition they have requested summary judgment in their favor. Regardless of the exact meaning of plaintiffs’ cryptic request, they have not shown that there is genuine dispute over material facts and the law, as shall be discussed, leads us to conclude that no valid constitutional claim can be asserted on these facts.

In advancing their due process claim, plaintiffs have ignored an element necessary for the alleged injury to have a constitutional dimension: that some sort of legitimate property interest, as defined, recognized and delineated by state law, be affected by the questioned governmental action. Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 577, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 2709, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972); Beitzell v. Jeffrey, 643 F.2d 870, 873-74 (1st Cir.1981). In Puerto Rico the law clearly adverted plaintiffs and all similarly situated that a diploma from a university or college acceptable to the Board was one of the requirements to practice dental surgery in Puerto Rico. The law provides in no uncertain terms that:

Every person desiring to obtain a license to practice dental surgery in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico shall fulfill the following requirements with the Board of Dental Examiners:
(D ....
(2) ....
(3) ....
(4) Have a dental surgeon diploma or its equivalent by the School of Odontology of the Medical Sciences Campus of the University of Puerto Rico, or by any other university or college, in which case the Board shall accept said academic record if same proves:
(a) that the admission requisites and the academic program, basis of the diploma or its equivalent, are analogous to those required by the School of Odontolo-gy of the Medical Sciences Campus of the University of Puerto Rico for the same purpose.
(b) that he has passed at least the last two years of study required for the issuance of such diploma or its equivalent in a university or college, that in the judgment of the Board, both by reason of his programs of study and by the acknowledgment held in the country where it is located, or in other jurisdictions, it [337]*337may be reasonably considered that it is a comparable and adequate educational institution, as to the teaching of said courses with the Faculty of Odontology of the Medical Sciences Campus of the University of Puerto Rico.

P.R.Laws Ann., Tit. 20 Sec. 89. This being the state of law when plaintiffs enrolled at the non-aecredited dental schools, we fail to see what sort of justifiable reliance they could have had in being permitted to practice dentistry in Puerto Rico after graduating from such institutions. Absent an allegation or some indication in the record that plaintiffs were somehow misled by the Board into believing that graduates from these institutions would be accepted or that at the time they enrolled, or any time thereafter, the Board had accepted the schools as suitable and later rejected them, the procedural due process claim fails to even break ground. Plaintiffs have no one but themselves to blame for not being able to comply with one of the requirements of section 89.

The claim that they were not afforded equal protection of law is also baseless. It is undeniable that section 89 creates certain classes of applicants based on the type of dental school from which they graduate, yet most laws involve some sort of discrimination whereby certain classifications are made and afforded different treatment. It is only when this discriminate treatment is not related to a legitimate legislative end or when it is based on a “suspect” classification that it may violate the Equal Protection Clause. See gen.: Rinaldi v. Yeager, 384 U.S. 305, 308-10, 86 S.Ct. 1497, 1499-500, 16 L.Ed.2d 577 (1966) and Procario v. Ambach, 561 F.Supp. 804, 809-10 (N.D.N.Y.1983). Aside from the fact that plaintiffs have not challenged the constitutionality of the classifications created by the statutes involved, it is also important to note that no suspect category has been invoked and that the legitimate power of the state in regulating professions dealing with public health has long been recognized. See e.g.: Graves v. State of Minnesota, 272 U.S. 425, 47 S.Ct. 122, 71 L.Ed. 331 (1926). In Graves,

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
580 F. Supp. 334, 1984 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19957, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/suarez-v-junta-dental-examinadora-prd-1984.