by Kim Garret
A Tennessee woman is challenging a law that requires her to be a veterinarian to serve as an animal chiropractor.
Dr. Laura Colman, of Clarksville, has a doctorate in chiropractic and a certificate in animal chiropractic from the American Veterinary Chiropractic Association, according to the lawsuit filed on Colman’s behalf by the Beacon Center.
“Yet regulations from Tennessee’s Board of the Veterinary Medical Examiners prohibit her from practicing animal chiropractic merely because she isn’t a licensed veterinarian,” the lawsuit said. “The Board’s regulations are arbitrary, irrational, and unduly burdensome.”
Veterinary schools do not require courses in animal chiropractic, according to the lawsuit provided by the Beacon Center.
“Dr. Colman has been extremely successful and actually makes more money as an animal chiropractor than she does as a human chiropractor,” said Wen Fa, vice president of legal affairs for the Beacon Center. “She shouldn’t have to spend years of time and pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to attend veterinary school, which requires no coursework in animal chiropractic, to work in a field in which she is already an expert.”
The Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners does not have the statutory authority to regulate animal chiropractors and the regulation should be vacated, the Beacon Center said in the lawsuit.
The Beacon Center is also asking the court to declare the regulation unconstitutional.
The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in Montgomery County Chancery Court.
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Kim Garret is an associate editor at The Center Square.
