North Carolina Dental Board Case Study

The North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners (Dental Board) is responsible for regulating the practice of dentistry in North Carolina. Their primary duty is licensing dentists in the state and ensuring dentists continue to meet licensing requirements. The Dental Board also has other more limited duties such as policing individuals who engage in dentistry, without a license. In those roles, the Dental Board both creates rules to regulate dentistry in the state, and makes individual decisions about licensing. The Dental Board makes all dentist licensing decisions in Norther Carolina, and the Board’s decisions are final as there is no oversight system in place. A major element of the Dental Examiners decision, is the makeup of the Dental Board. The Dental Board has eight
The Court held that a state board could be liable if a “controlling number of decisionmakers are active market participants in the occupation the board regulates.” While the Court referenced the majority on the Dental Board, it did not specifically state that only boards with a majority are at risk. A dissent by Justice Samuel Alito noted that the Court left the term “controlled” vague and unclear. An additional issue is what does “active market participant” mean? The Court defined it as someone “who possess singularly strong private interests.” In this case, that appears to mean someone who works in the industry and has an interest in limiting competition in the industry. In summary, the Supreme Court did not make it clear what “controlled by active market participants” meant in the decision, and therefore that is likely to be a major point of contention going forward. As will be discussed later, the FTC guidance will likely serve as a major source of information on this