By Chris Copeland, General Counsel/Director of Government Relations
A lawsuit was filed against the Texas Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners (“the Board”) on Tuesday seeking an injunction barring the Board from enforcing the Veterinary Licensing Act (“the Act”) against a group of non-veterinarian equine dental technicians. In February of this year the Board sent cease and desist letters to the Plaintiffs demanding that they no longer perform equine dental services in violation of the Act. Rather than complying, the Plaintiffs sought legal representation from the Institute for Justice, a Virginia public interest law firm that claims to “litigate nationwide on behalf of entrepreneurs harassed by big government.” (The Institute for Justice’s Minnesota branch is currently involved in similar litigation with the Minnesota Board of Veterinary Medicine.)
The Plaintiffs in the case are listed as: Carl Mitz, Dena Corbin, Randy Riedinger, Brady George, Gary Barnes and Tony Greaves. Mitz, Corbin, Riedinger and George are all equine dental technicians, while Barnes and Greaves are owners of large numbers of miniature horses. In their petition, the “Practitioner-Plaintiffs” claim that the Board’s actions have “imposed severe financial hardship…by preventing them from earning a living in the occupation of their choice–an occupation in which they are fully proficient and to which they have devoted substantial time, effort and money in learning to perform well.”
In addition, the “Breeder-Plaintiffs” claim to “have been denied the ability to select the person they believe is best able to provide for their horses’ dental needs and who have been forced instead to choose exclusively from a pool of largely untrained, inexperienced and ill-equipped state-licensed veterinarians to perform those services at a lower standard of quality. Breeder-Plaintiffs reasonably expect that this loss of personal choice will cost them money in terms of lower revenue from the sales of horses and higher costs in the form of increased fees typically charged by veterinarians as compared to lay-equine practitioners like Practitioner-Plaintiffs. Breeder-Plaintiffs expect that they will be made less competitive compared to those breeding horses in states where equine dental practitioners are free to practice.”
Among the statements of “facts” included in the Plaintiff’s Petition are the following:
The Petition contains several causes of action, primarily based upon provisions contained in the Texas Constitution. Among these are that the Act prevents the Practitioner-Plaintiffs’ right to earn a living free from unreasonable government interference; that the Act’s provisions regulating equine dental practitioners do not meet the criteria necessary for regulating occupations; that the Act unconstitutionally creates a monopoly; and that the Act violates the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause by “lumping equine dental practitioners together with veterinarians” and prohibiting “equine dental practitioners like the Practitioner-Plaintiffs from providing their services while allowing laypeople to provide other more invasive and potentially harmful services such as horseshoeing, branding, birthing, dehorning, tail docking, castration, and artificial insemination.”
In the end, the goal of the lawsuit is to have the court enter a temporary and permanent injunction preventing the enforcement of the Act against equine dental technicians for performing the procedures listed by the Board in the cease and desist letters. Additionally, the Plaintiffs hope to gain the ability to “freely choose the practitioner they believe is best qualified to care for their horses’ teeth.”
