Whether you are an electrician, plumber, general contractor, physician, nurse, engineer, realtor, or any other licensed professional, the first question that you will ask yourself if you receive a complaint to your licensing board is will I lose my license? That is natural question to ask. The short answer to that question is ‘likely not’. Now, that does not mean that the North Carolina Department of Insurance, for example, does not suspend licensed insurance brokers, it just means that suspension and revocations are not common in professional license cases. While losing a professional license is not common, certain types of violations are highly likely to result in the loss of an occupational license.
What Penalties Result in a Loss of a Professional License?
There are typically four ways to lose your professional license in North Carolina. That is via either summary suspension, suspension, revocation, or voluntary surrender (more on that here).
First is the summary suspension and it is the only one that happens before you even have an opportunity to request a hearing. A summary suspension is allowed by statute to be issued by a board or agency only if the actions of the Licensee are so egregious that “the agency finds that the public health, safety, or welfare requires emergency action” (NCGS 150B-3(c)) to keep the Licensee from endangering the public by continuing to practice in his or her professional capacity.
Second is a good old fashioned suspension. This can be agreed upon by both parties via a formal agreement or a consent order or it can be entered as a Final Agency Decision after a contested case hearing between the Licensee and Board/Agency.
Third is a revocation. Again, this can be agreed upon by both parties via a formal agreement or a consent order or it can be entered as a Final Agency Decision after a contested case hearing between the Licensee and Board/Agency. Normally, there has to be something that was done by the Licensee that drastically endangered the public for a Board to seek a revocation (more on that below).
Fourth is a voluntary surrender of your professional license. Depending on the Agency or Board this may be treated slightly differently than a revocation, but normally a voluntary surrender is an agreement for the Licensee to have his/her occupational license essentially revoked by the Board either for a set period of time or permanently. A lot of times the reason people may enter into a voluntary surrender or revocation is to either avoid ‘findings of fact’ in the final agreement/consent order or agree to more favorable ‘findings of fact’ in the final agreement/consent order. Reason being is that consent order, agreements, Final Agency Decisions are public record and pretty easy to locate on Board/Agency websites.
What Ethical Violations Can Result in the Loss of My Professional License?
As I mentioned above, for a Licensee to lose their license via either a summary suspension, suspension, revocation, or voluntary surrender, the actions of the Licensee must have unequivocally endangered the public. Now, most people assume that endangering the public is limited to just physical harm. While physically harming someone, or even putting someone in danger of physical harm, can be enough for the loss of an occupational license, financial harm can also be enough to endanger the public.
Financial crimes such as Fraud, False Pretenses, or Embezzlement, to name a few, are some of the quickest ways to lose your professional license. Typically, when someone is accused of a financial crime there is a papertrail, or lack of a papertrail that would help the Licensee. Documentation in general can either help or hurt your case. If you kept poor financial records, but did not commit a financial crime, the lack of proper records will substantially hurt your case and could result in the loss of your professional license.
Another way a Licensee can lose their license is if they have already violated an ethics rule or rules in an earlier matter, entered into an agreement or order, then violate the terms of the agreement or consent order with the licensing board/agency. This is why it is very important to know what agreement or order you are signing so you know exactly what you need to do, and when you need to do it, so you stay in compliance with the terms.
Regardless of your profession, it may seem like the world is crumbling around you when you receive a complaint against your professional license. Don’t jump straight to the worse-case scenario of loss of your license. Even if you made an egregious error, you may get the opportunity for a second chance, but only if you make the correct decisions with your case going forward.
If you have a complaint and want to make the right decision, please give us a call at 919-521-8810 for a FREE 15 minute discovery call.
*Nothing in this blog establishes an attorney-client relationship. Nothing in this blog is legal advice. If you have any questions, please check out our other blogs and our Youtube channel.
