1st District of the Illinois Appellate Court affirms Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation

Posted on November 7, 2011 by mgoldberg

On November 4, 2011, the Illinois Appellate Court affirmed the decision by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation to deny a doctor a license to practice medicine in Illinois.   The Department based its decision on a settlement reached between the doctor and an inquiry panel of the Colorado State Board of Medical Examiners (Colorado Board). When the Colorado Board began to investigate allegations of misconduct brought against the doctor, he agreed to have the Colorado Board place his license permanently on inactive status so that the Colorado Board would not formally charge him and he would not need to undergo the process of a full investigation and hearing. The doctor argued to the Department and on administrative review in Cook County that the Department should not discipline him based on the Colorado settlement because the Colorado Board never charged him with misconduct and it never imposed discipline on him. The trial court affirmed the Department’s decision to refuse to renew the doctor’s license, and the doctor appealed.

The doctor contended that the Colorado Board did not take “disciplinary action,” within the meaning of section 22(A)(12) of the Illinois Act, because the Colorado Act limits the kinds of discipline the Colorado Board may impose. The Colorado Act specifies that if a hearings panel finds charges of unprofessional conduct proven, the hearings panel may order the imposition of discipline, “which shall be in the form of a letter of admonition, suspension for a definite or indefinite period, or revocation of license to practice. In lieu of a suspension, the hearings panel may impose a fine.” Colo. Rev. Stat. § 12-36-118(5)(g)(III) (2007). An inquiry panel in Colorado investigated the allegations against Dr. Gross, but the panel filed no formal charges, and no hearing panel ever addressed the allegations. See Colo. Rev. Stat. § 12-36-118(1)(b), (1)(c) (2007). The Colorado Board agreed to place the doctor’s license on inactive status permanently, and the Colorado Act does not list such action as a form of discipline a hearings panel may impose.

The Appellate Court found that the agreement with the Colorado Board had some characteristics in common with a plea of nolo contendere. When a party pleads nolo contendere to a charge, that party does not admit that he committed the charged misconduct, but he accepts some form of the consequences just as though he had committed the charged misconduct. See North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25, 35-36 (1970). In this case, the doctor did not admit wrongdoing, but, the Appellate Court reasoned, he accepted, as a consequence of the charges, a restriction on his license that precluded him from actively practicing in Colorado.

The Illinois Appellate Court found that the Department did not clearly err when it held that the agreement to place Dr. Gross’s license permanently on inactive status counts as disciplinary action withing the meaning of the Illinois Medical Practice Act of 1987 (Illinois Act) (225 ILCS 60/1 et seq. (West 2006)). Therefore, the Appellate Court affirmed the decisions of the trial court and the Department.