United States Supreme Court

The North Carolina Dental Practice Act provides that the North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners (Board) is the agency of the State for the regulation of the practice of dentistry. The Act does not, however, specify that teeth whitening is "the practice of dentistry." In this antitrust case, upon complaint that non-dentists were providing teeth whitening serves in North Carolina, the Board began various actions that led non-dentists to cease offering such services. The Fourth Circuit affirmed the Federal Trade Commission's ruling that the Board is not entitled to state-action immunity and that the Board had unreasonably restrained trade in violation of antitrust law. The judgment of the Fourth Circuit is affirmed, where, because a controlling number of the Board's decision makers are active market participants in the occupation that the Board regulates, it can invoke state-action antitrust immunity only if it was subject to active supervision by the State, and here that requirement was not met.

Appellate Information

• Decided 02/25/2015
• Published 02/25/2015

Judges

• Kennedy

Court

• United States Supreme Court

Counsel