Watson v. Maryland, 218 U.S. 173 (1910)

Watson v. Maryland

No. 174

Argued April 27, 1910
Decided May 31, 1910
218 U.S. 173

ERROR TO THE COURT OF APPEALS

OF THE STATE OF MARYLAND

Syllabus

The decision of the state court that an offense under a statute did not depend on conditions as to notice contained in another statute is conclusive on this Court, and one convicted in a state court is not denied due process of law by reason of such construction.

The police power of the state particularly extends to regulating trades and callings concerning public health, and practitioners of medicine are properly subject to police regulation, the details of which are primarily with the legislature and are not to be interfered with by the federal courts so long as fundamental constitutional rights are not violated. Dent v. West Virginia, 129 U.S. 114.

Classification will not render a state police statute unconstitutional as denying equal protection of the law so long as there is a reasonable basis for such classification; nor will exceptions of specified classes render the law unconstitutional unless there is no fair reason for the law that would not equally require its extension to the excepted class. Williams v. Arkansas, 217 U.S. 79.

The medical registration law of Maryland (art. 43, § 83, Code of 1904) is not unconstitutional as denying equal protection of the law because its provisions do not apply to those who practiced prior to a specified date and treated at least twelve persons within a year prior thereto, or because it does not apply to gratuitous services, or to physicians in hospitals, none of the exceptions being unreasonable.

105 Md. 650 affirmed.

The facts, which involve the constitutionality of the statute of Maryland relative to registration of medical practitioners in that state, are stated in the opinion.