Webb v. State Med. Bd. of Ohio,
No. 01AP-469 (Ohio Ct. App. Nov. 29, 2001)

A psychiatrist appealed a decision by the state licensing board to revoke his license to practice medicine for failure to disclose on his renewal applications for three separate years that disciplinary actions had been taken against him in another state. The psychiatrist claimed that he felt he had accurately replied because the forms had asked whether any disciplinary action had been "taken or initiated" against him by licensing boards outside of Ohio, and that he believed, and had been advised by his attorney, that the complaints that had been filed against him outside of Ohio merely prompted an investigation by the other state board and that an investigation did not constitute disciplinary action. He did admit that he had inadvertently answered the question inaccurately the third year in question because the state board had changed its application form to include "investigations" by other state licensing boards and he had not noticed that the form had changed.

The state board found that, even if the psychiatrist had unintentionally made the misrepresentations, he had misled the board and it decided to revoke his license, a decision that the psychiatrist appealed to state trial court, then the Court of Appeals of Ohio. The Appeals Court held that state law required a finding of intentional misrepresentation by the psychiatrist in order to find him in violation of state law, and that the required intentionality was not established.