## Facts

- Clara E. Brown hired Francis T. Shyne, a chiropractor, to diagnose and treat a disease or physical condition.
- Shyne was not licensed to practice medicine in New York but held himself out as able to diagnose and treat disease, conduct treated as unlawful under the Public Health Law.
- After nine chiropractic treatments, Brown became paralyzed; for purposes of review, causation by the treatment was assumed.
- Brown sued for negligence, alleging the paralysis resulted from Shyne’s negligent treatment.
- At trial, Brown presented evidence describing the treatment and expert testimony that the method departed from recognized practice, should have been foreseeable as dangerous, and caused the paralysis.
- The trial court allowed Brown to amend her pleading to allege Shyne was practicing medicine unlawfully without a license.
- The jury was instructed that the statutory violation could be considered as evidence of negligence and returned a $10,000 verdict for Brown.
- The Appellate Division affirmed; the Court of Appeals granted review.

## Issues

1. Whether practicing medicine without a license, by itself, constitutes negligence or may be considered evidence of negligence in a malpractice action.
2. Whether a plaintiff may recover for injury during treatment based solely on the licensing violation, without proving that the unlicensed status was the proximate cause through lack of skill or care.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals reversed and ordered a new trial.
- The court held that non-licensure, standing alone, is neither negligence nor admissible as evidence of negligence unless the statutory violation is shown to have a direct causal connection to the injury.
- The court concluded the jury instruction was erroneous because it permitted the jury to treat the mere absence of a license as “some evidence of negligence” without limiting its use to circumstances where the statutory breach caused the harm.
- Two judges dissented, reasoning that injury resulting from unlicensed treatment should permit recovery based on the statute’s protective purpose.

## Legal Principles

- A statutory violation supports civil recovery only when the violation is a proximate cause of the injury the statute aims to prevent; if the violation has no direct bearing on the injury, it is irrelevant.
- Licensing statutes are designed to protect the public from unskilled or careless practitioners, but lack of a license does not itself prove careless treatment.
- A person who undertakes to diagnose and treat disease may be held to the degree of skill and care he claims to possess, measured by the standard of qualified practitioners in the jurisdiction.
- In malpractice claims involving unlicensed practice, the plaintiff must prove both (1) a failure to use the care and skill of qualified practitioners and (2) causation linking that failure to the injury; regulatory noncompliance alone is insufficient.

## Conclusion

The court required a causal link between unlawful unlicensed practice and the patient’s injury: the plaintiff had to prove negligent treatment under the professional standard of care and that such negligence caused the paralysis, and the trial court’s broader instruction treating non-licensure as general evidence of negligence necessitated a new trial.


Brown v. Shyne, 242 N.Y. 176, 151 N.E. 197 (N.Y. 1926)