In celebration of Beacon’s 20th Anniversary, Beacon President and CEO Justin Owen wrote a book called Modern Davids: Celebrating 20 Years with 20 Stories of Everyday Tennesseans Fighting Big Government. We will be sharing an excerpt from the book each month to tell you more about our heroes. The book is out now! You can secure your copy by clicking here.
The letter arrived on April 25th. Martha’s jaw dropped as she read it. She had built her equine boarding and massage business from scratch. She was now the breadwinner in her family, allowing her husband Kurt to recuperate from his year-long stint in Iraq. According to the letter, all she had worked so hard to build was now gone.
Martha Stowe started True Equine in 2011, offering services for horses including boarding, training, and a form of animal massage known as Myofacial Release, or MFR. Martha knew the benefits of MFR first-hand. Having suffered from a back injury, MFR was the only treatment that had worked for her. It was such a saving grace that she learned the technique herself and began applying it to her clients’ horses. Martha’s business boomed, and the timing couldn’t have been better. When he returned home from war, Kurt was in desperate need of some time off. Martha’s growing business allowed him to rest and spend time with their two children while she provided for the family. With the arrival of the letter, that was all about to change.
Another letter. It arrived on the same day. Unlike Martha, Laurie Wheeler knew what it was all about. She had already been contacted by the Board of Veterinary Medicine about the complaint that had been filed against her. Still, as she read the letter, she could not believe that she was being accused of practicing veterinary medicine without a license. She hadn’t even made a single dime off massaging horses; it was all provided free of charge.
In the blink of an eye, both women’s future in the equine massage business ground to a halt. Two letters. Two budding careers put on hold. All because one state agency had arbitrarily declared that massaging horses was the practice of veterinary medicine.
This is the reality that thousands of Americans face, as licensing boards across the country expand their reach by rulemaking. Veterinary boards declaring horse massaging under their exclusive domain. Dental boards banning non-dentists from whitening teeth. Cosmetology boards telling natural hair braiders they must become licensed cosmetologists even though they don’t even cut hair. This list goes on.
Imagine losing your job because an unelected board of government bureaucrats—or even worse, a board of your competitors with the force of government power—suddenly declared it illegal.
In Martha and Laurie’s case, a board composed almost exclusively of veterinarians passed a rule requiring anyone engaging in animal massage to obtain an expensive veterinary license or work directly under the supervision of a vet to earn a living. Obtaining a vet license would cost them more than $100,000 and four years of schooling, something they could ill afford and had no reason to undertake.
This rule was in no way based on the public health and safety of either animals or humans. Rather, it merely limited the ability of people to seek meaningful services for their horses and other animals provided by people who care deeply for those animals. In effect, the state was criminalizing compassion.
Thankfully, Martha and Laurie contacted Beacon after seeing Tammy’s shampooing lawsuit in the news. They had their own licensing case for us to take, which we did. After we sued the veterinary board on their behalf, state legislators again took note and overturned this unjust rule so that Martha and Laurie could get back to work.