State Board of Nursing and State Board of Healing Arts v. Ruebke case brief

State Board of Nursing and State Board of Healing Arts v. Ruebke case brief summary
913 P.2d 142 (1996)

CASE SYNOPSIS

Appellants, state board of nursing and state board of healing arts (boards), challenged the decision of the Butler District Court (Kansas), which denied their request for a temporary injunction by which the boards sought to stop appellee midwife from continuing her alleged practice of medicine and nursing.

CASE FACTS
The boards filed for a temporary injunction to stop the midwife from continuing her alleged practice of medicine and nursing. The trial court denied the boards' motion finding that certain provisions of both the Kansas Healing Arts Act, Kan. Stat. Ann. § 65-2801 et seq., and the Kansas Nursing Act, Kan. Stat. Ann. § 65-1113 et seq., were unconstitutionally vague, and that the midwife's practices incident to her lay midwifery were not within the scope of either act. The boards appealed. 

DISCUSSION

• The court held that the acts were not unconstitutional. 
• The court also determined that the practice of midwifery was not itself the practice of healing arts under the statute. 
• As to the midwife, the court found that her activities that she may have engaged in beyond midwifery were excepted from the healing arts act by virtue of the supervision provided by a licensed physician.

CONCLUSION
The court affirmed the trial court's order that denied the boards' request for a temporary injunction and reversed the trial court's order that the acts at issue violated the constitution.


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