Van Vleck v. Board of Dental Examiners

This is a proceeding in mandate, commenced in the superior court, against the board of dental examiners of the state, and the individuals composing said board, to compel the issuance to petitioner of a certificate entitling him to practice dentistry, under the act of the legislature entitled “An act to insure the better education of practitioners of dental surgery, and to regulate the practice of dentistry in the state of California,” approved March 12, 1885: Stats. 1885, p. 110. The court below gave judgment granting a peremptory writ, and defendants appealed therefrom, and from an order denying them a new trial.

Defendants demurred to the complaint or petition, upon the ground, among others, that it did not state facts entitling petitioner to the relief sought. The demurrer was overruled, and this ruling presents the only question which need be considered, since we are of the opinion the demurrer should have been sustained. The petition, omitting the formal parts and much immaterial and redundant matter, is, in substance, *638 that petitioner is the holder of a diploma of graduation regularly issued to him on April 2, 1894, by the American College of Dental Surgery of Chicago,…

I entirely agree with Mr. Justice Van Fleet as to the true construction of the legislative act here involved, but am compelled to dissent from the conclusion arrived at, to the effect that the petition does not state sufficient facts to entitle petitioner to the relief sought. At one stage of the proceedings the board of dental examiners has a pure ministerial duty to perform, viz., to indorse the applicant’s diploma as satisfactory; and that stage of the proceedings is reached when the board is satisfied that the character of the institution issuing the diploma is that of a reputable dental college, taken in connection with the further condition that the holder of the diploma has also furnished “evidence satisfactory to the board of his or her *644 right to the same.” If the holder of the diploma complies with these two demands of the statute, then I say there is nothing remaining for the board of examiners to do but to indorse the diploma as satisfactory—an act in no sense judicial, and one to compel the performance of which a mandate will issue. Eliminating from the allegations of the petition all immaterial matters, it still fairly shows a compliance with the two foregoing…