GOVERNMENT MUST FOLLOW THE LAW WHEN IT ENFORCES THE LAW  #RestorePTJustice

THEY OFFICIALLY DETERMINED I WAS "SAFE TO PRACTICE." 

They found I caused no patient harm.

They concluded I committed no violations.

Then they imposed career-altering restrictions anyway.

If that sounds impossible, keep reading.

If a licensing board can do that after two decades of practice with no prior discipline, it can happen to any professional whose livelihood depends on government power being exercised fairly.

This petition is not a request to relitigate every disputed fact in a closed case. It is a request that Virginia:

• Write the rules before it enforces them
• Review evidence as it actually appears in the record
• Stop using undefined standards and layered deference to impose lasting professional exile

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TWENTY YEARS, THEN THE SYSTEM CHANGED THE RULES AROUND THE CARE 

I practiced for 20 years as a Virginia-licensed physical therapist and licensed massage therapist.

In that time I:

• Provided more than 110,000 patient treatments
• Maintained physician referrals  
• Had no prior disciplinary history
• Earned the trust of thousands of patients
• Received more than 300 statements of support from patients and healthcare professionals

I believed that if I practiced ethically, documented carefully, respected my patients, and followed the law, the system would protect both patients and professionals.

I was wrong.

The case that removed me from practice did not begin with a finding that pelvic-floor physical therapy is outside the scope of physical therapy. The Board itself authorizes pelvic-rehabilitation training. The dispute began after I recommended pelvic-floor therapy following a patient disclosure of urinary incontinence — and after disputed external treatment near the pelvis was later relabeled as if it were the same thing as pelvic-floor therapy that the patient had refused.

That distinction matters:

• Recommending a recognized treatment is not the same as performing it.
• External orthopedic or fascial treatment near the pelvis is not automatically pelvic-floor therapy.
• A fair system has to keep those categories separate.

THIS ONE DID NOT.

Dr. Holly Tanner, a nationally recognized pelvic-health physical therapist, reviewed the records and disciplinary materials and wrote:

“I see nothing to indicate that Mr. Roberts did anything that was clinically inappropriate or outside the prevailing standard of care among physical therapists.”

She further concluded that nothing she reviewed showed I could not safely and competently practice.

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THERE ARE TWO TIMELINES. THE PETITION IS ABOUT WHAT THE SECOND ONE STILL FAILED TO FIX. 

First timeline — original discipline and court review

In February 2022 the Board used emergency/summary-suspension authority after a short telephonic proceeding. The underlying investigation had not suddenly appeared that month. I had already been interviewed in June 2021. Investigative reports were prepared by October 2021.

The legally important question is not a coincidence.

It is this: if the agency already possessed the file for nearly two years, what new immediate danger required pre-hearing removal from practice?

The circuit court later rejected part of the Board’s original legal theory, including the attempt to treat pelvic-floor therapy as an “invasive procedure” triggering extra authorization rules the regulations did not actually impose. That should have forced a narrower, procedure-specific case. Instead, the surviving findings were still described in sweeping terms.

In January 2026, the Court of Appeals issued an unpublished memorandum opinion affirming selected findings under a deferential standard. That opinion is publicly available. It should be read. It should also be read against the record it claims to review.

The opinion opens by describing an investigation into “unauthorized pelvic floor therapy” on Patients A and B. Later, discussing Patient B, the same opinion recites that she refused pelvic-floor therapy, that the contact described was over clothing, that I described fascial-point treatment on the pubic bone, and that the contemporaneous chart stated the patient “never received pelvic floor treatment.” It then still uses that encounter as part of a supposed “pattern of unprofessional, sexual conduct.”

That is the problem in one paragraph. A reviewing court may resolve credibility disputes. It may not announce substantial-evidence review, recite contradictory record evidence, and then adopt the agency’s characterization as if the contradiction were never there. Deference is supposed to follow review of the record. It is not supposed to replace it.

Patient B is the cleanest example, not the only disputed example. Patient A’s sworn description of location — on the top of the body, not between the legs, next to the pubic bone — is not the same sentence as the later written finding of contact with the vaginal opening through clothing.

Those are different propositions. A petition for reform does not require pretending all three patient accounts were identical. It requires that written findings track what the witnesses actually said.

Second timeline — reinstatement

At the later reinstatement hearing, the Board found I was safe and competent to practice and not responsible for patient harm. It reinstated the license — then placed it on indefinite probation, with significant practice restrictions and national reporting consequences that continue to follow the license.

That is the contradiction this petition exists to address:

If the Board’s own later conclusion is that the clinician is safe, competent, and responsible for no patient harm, what lawful purpose is served by indefinite control, undefined chaperone conditions, and national reporting that outlives the finding of safety?

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THE RULES BEING ENFORCED WERE NEVER WRITTEN

The Board acknowledged it had:

• no written definition of “pelvic floor therapy”
• no written regulation defining “chaperone”

The Court of Appeals then supplied its own unsourced footnote definition: treatment of muscles in the pelvis, plus strengthening, stabilization, and “at times inter-vaginal manual therapy.”

• Taken literally, that definition sweeps ordinary orthopedic work around the pelvis into a specialty label.
• It also omits core parts of actual pelvic-rehabilitation practice, including internal assessment and rectal examination used in male pelvic care.

A licensed professional cannot have fair notice of prohibited conduct if the agency has no definition, the circuit court rejects the agency’s “invasive procedure” theory, and a reviewing court then invents a third definition in a footnote.

The same gap produced mandatory-board approved chaperone conditions that stripped adult patients of the right to decline. Competent adults have a right to informed consent and a right to refuse a third person in the treatment room.

Protecting patients does not require erasing patient choice.

The same clinical encounter was also used against a separate massage-therapy license, with a different outcome from a different board.

Each board should regulate the profession entrusted to it. Identical care should not become two different moral verdicts depending on which license is convenient.

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THE PROCESS FAILED THE NEUTRALITY THE LAW REQUIRES

Virginia law requires a licensing board to adjudicate, not prosecute — the equivalent of an impartial jury.

The Board’s only job is to listen and decide fairly.

The hearing transcripts show the Board repeatedly abandoned that role and acted instead as an extension of the prosecution:

• When counsel asked the Board on the record to state the burden of proof, the Board refused and simply said, “We note your position. We are going to go ahead.” By declining to define the legal standard, the Board preserved unlimited discretion to reach a predetermined result.
• Conflicted actors were allowed to influence the process and closed-session deliberations:
  • An Assistant Attorney General who was simultaneously defending the Board’s prior actions in the Court of Appeals,
  • An Executive Director who had previously taken a position favoring revocation,
  • Prior adjudicators who had already ruled against me on the same facts in 2022 and 2023 that were involved in violating my due process rights (won in circuit court).
• Board members engaged in (or tolerated) prosecutorial patterns:
  • Leading questions that assumed guilt,
  • Interrupting and arguing with answers,
  • Expanding beyond the formal charges, and
  • Using a hostile or sarcastic tone.
• The Board preferred the investigator’s years-old filtered notes over live testimony from the primary witness who was physically present and available for cross-examination.
• Exclusion or limitation of expert evidence on specialized clinical questions the Board then answered itself.
• Emergency suspension language that never clearly identified what changed between the months-old investigative file and the day of pre-hearing removal.
• When that primary witness’s testimony substantially collapsed under cross-examination — confirming the treatment helped, that she had declined chaperones, and that contemporaneous records contradicted her later account — the Board ignored the collapse and continued relying on the original narrative.

When these concerns were taken to the Director of the Department of Health Professions, the response was:

“There is nothing I can do because the boards are politically appointed.”

That is not an answer. Licensing boards can suspend a license, restrict a career, damage a reputation, and follow a clinician across state lines through national reporting. Power of that magnitude requires someone who can say “no” when the board itself is the problem.

A Board that refuses to state the rules, allows conflicted actors to participate, takes over the prosecutor’s role, prefers controllable hearsay, and closes its eyes to devastating live evidence is not a neutral tribunal.

It is an arm of the prosecution.

Under the Virginia Administrative Process Act, these are classic grounds for finding the proceeding fundamentally unfair.

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WHAT WE ARE ASKING

We urge the Virginia General Assembly, the Department of Health Professions, licensing boards, and national organizations to adopt these common-sense reforms:

WRITE THE STANDARD BEFORE ENFORCING IT

• No licensee should be disciplined for violating a definition, consent rule, chaperone rule, or “invasive procedure” rule that was not clearly written, public, and in force when the care occurred.

• Government cannot fairly enforce rules that do not exist.

END RETROACTIVE ENFORCEMENT

• Professionals should be judged by the law that existed at the time of treatment, not by later characterizations or unsourced judicial footnotes.

• Government should enforce the law as written, not as later reimagined.

RESTORE MEANINGFUL DUE PROCESS

• Every licensee deserves a fair, impartial, and transparent hearing where all relevant evidence, expert testimony, and exculpatory information receive meaningful consideration.
• Due process is a constitutional guarantee, not a technicality.

RESTORE WHOLE-RECORD REVIEW

• “Substantial evidence” must mean the record as a whole, including testimony and documentation that contradict the agency’s label.
• Reciting contradictory evidence and then ignoring it is not review.

CREATE INDEPENDENT OVERSIGHT - SEPARATE INVESTIGATION, PROSECUTION, AND JUDGEMENT

• No agency should investigate, prosecute, and judge its own cases.

• Severe sanctions — summary suspension, multi-year removal, indefinite probation, national reporting — should receive independent review outside the same agency that built the case.

REQUIRE EVIDENCE-BASED FINDINGS

• Disciplinary decisions must be supported by objective evidence contained in the record.

• Recommendations are not performances.

• External pelvic-region treatment is not automatically pelvic-floor therapy.

• Patient discomfort is evidence. It is not, by itself, proof of sexual misconduct or of a violated written standard.

USE EMERGENCY SUSPENSION ONLY FOR A TRUE EMERGENCY

• If the agency has possessed the file for years, it must identify the intervening fact that made immediate pre-hearing removal necessary.
• Delay plus emergency power is not public protection. It is process failure.

INCREASE TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY

• Public confidence depends upon transparency.

• Disciplinary proceedings, investigative practices, voting procedures, and appellate records should be conducted in a manner that promotes accountability and allows meaningful public review.

PRIORITIZE REMEDIATION OVER CAREER DESTRUCTION WHEN THE BOARD ITSELF FINDS THE CLINICIAN SAFE & COMPETENT 

• If the agency concludes the person is safe, competent, and responsible for no patient harm, the default should be targeted conditions with an end date — not indefinite control and permanent reporting.
• The purpose of regulation is to protect the public, not simply to punish professionals.

PROTECT PATIENT AUTONOMY

• Competent adult patients must retain the right to informed consent and the right to decline a chaperone, subject to clear, written safety rules applied evenly.

• Regulatory policies should protect informed consent, patient privacy, and access to qualified providers while maintaining appropriate safeguards for patient safety.

PRESERVE PROFESSIONAL BOUNDARIES

• Each licensing board should regulate only the profession entrusted to its authority.
• Care provided under one license should not be bootstrapped into a second board’s punishment without a separate, written legal basis.

HOLD GOVERNMENT TO THE SAME STANDARD IT IMPOSES

• Licensing boards demand documentation, definitions, and accountability from professionals and must demonstrate the same.
• They must publish their own definitions, state their burden of proof, and accept review that can actually reverse them.
• Government earns public trust not simply by enforcing the law, but by demonstrating that it is equally bound by it.

REQUIRE CONSISTENT DISCIPLINARY STANDARDS & A PUBLIC EXPLANATION WHEN THEY ARE NOT

• Similar conduct should result in reasonably consistent disciplinary outcomes.
• If comparable conduct produces radically different outcomes, the agency must explain the principle. Otherwise the public cannot tell regulation from targeting.
• Government agencies should be held to the same standards of accountability they expect from the professionals they regulate.

Government must follow the law when it enforces the law.

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WHY YOUR SIGNATURE MATTERS

Every licensed professional in Virginia — nurses, physicians, therapists, counselors, pharmacists — practices under a board that can end a career before a full hearing and then keep restrictions in place after later finding the person safe.

Patients deserve real protection from unsafe care.

They also deserve a system that can tell the difference between a refused treatment, a recommended treatment, and a performed treatment, and that does not invent the definition after the fact.

If you believe:

✅ Government agencies must be accountable for their actions

✅ Due process should never depend upon who you are or what profession you hold

✅ Professional discipline should be based upon objective evidence, not unwritten rules

✅ Patients deserve both safe care and fair regulation

✅ Public officials should face meaningful oversight

✅ Constitutional protections should apply equally to everyone

✅ A finding of safety should mean something

✅ Undefined rules should not destroy a license

✅ A court opinion that quotes the chart saying a patient “never received pelvic floor treatment” should not still describe that same case as unauthorized pelvic-floor therapy.

Then please sign this petition and share it with:

✅ Licensed Healthcare professionals

✅ Patients

✅ Attorneys

✅ Lawmakers

✅ Journalists

✅ Civil liberties organizations

✅ Anyone who believes government power requires accountability

This petition is about more than one therapist.

It is about protecting every licensed professional and every citizen from arbitrary government action.

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PROTECT PATIENTS.

PROTECT DUE PROCESS.

PROTECT PROFESSIONAL INTEGRITY.

PROTECT THE RULE OF LAW.

Government must follow the law when it enforces the law.

Scott Roberts, PT, LMT

Virginia Licensed Physical Therapist & Licensed Massage Therapist 

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MEDIA INQUIRIES

Scott Roberts, PT, LMT

Email: scott@robertspt.com

Supporting documentation, expert declarations, and additional materials are available upon request.