Head v. New Mexico Board of Exam’rs, 374 U.S. 424 (1963)

Head v. New Mexico Board of Examiners in Optometry

No. 392

Argued April 15-16, 1963
Decided June 17, 1963
374 U.S. 424

APPEAL FROM THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW MEXICO

Syllabus

One of the appellants owns a newspaper, and the other a radio station, in New Mexico close to the Texas border, and much of the area served by both the newspaper and the radio station lies in Texas. Both appellants were enjoined by a New Mexico State Court from accepting or publishing within the State of New Mexico a Texas optometrist’s advertising found to be in violation of a New Mexico statute regulating advertising by optometrists. The Supreme Court of New Mexico affirmed.

Held:

1. The New Mexico statute, as applied here to prevent the publication in New Mexico of the proscribed advertising, does not impose a constitutionally prohibited burden on interstate commerce. Pp. 427-429.

2. New Mexico’s jurisdiction to regulate professional advertising practices in the manner here involved has not been preempted with respect to radio advertising by the Federal Communications Act. Pp. 429-432.

3. The statute here involved does not deprive appellants of property without due process of law or violate their privileges and immunities of national citizenship contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment. P. 432, n. 12.

4. Appellants’ contention that the injunction constitutes an invalid restraint upon freedom of speech protected by the Fourteenth Amendment is not properly before this Court, since it was not made in the state courts or reserved in the notice of appeal to this Court. P. 433, n. 12.

70 N.M. 90, 370 P.2d 811, affirmed.