Field notes

I do not think it matters what media the notes are kept on. The media form depends upon what filing system is best for an office.

The most important feature of the field notes are what and how everything is documented.
Date
Crew members
weather
detail of sketches
detailed descriptions
scaled to approximate or real location
ability to read
ability to locate details on final plat or to presentation references
and many more of your preference

It is always the case that the field notes are best understood by the maker and another surveyor and hardly ever really understood by any other person in the courtroom.

Any proof of notes is much better than none at all, even if it is only printed sheets of raw data and coords.

Have worked places with both types....never had any effect on anything one way or the other.

For filing purposes, it made filing by job number or by block and lot much easier.

In most city survey offices I've worked in, the field notes are kept in one place and the maps and supporting documents in another.

> or " the Bound notebook Boogieman"
> We- or at least, I was always taught that bound books were an absolute must for legal reasons.
>
> Then I came to work here and we use loose leaf note forms, either 8.5X11 or 5.5x8-
>
> So my ? is - Can anyone cite a case where bound notes were either pivotal or at least, lended credibility to testimony?

Of the few cases I have been personally involved in, I had not been asked for the notes as verification for what we did, so I could have even just stored everything via coords and thrown away the raw data and field notes.

FWIW I use loose leaf pages that I store in file folders, sorted by year. I keep copies in the file.

I'm one of the old-school people that were taught that bound books were a must so something could not be pulled out and swapped with revised notes later, kind of like not erasing in the field book. However, in the cases I've been involved in, the attorneys leafing through the files flip right past the notes, probably not wanting to admit they have no idea what they're looking at. In fact, nobody's ever even asked to see the original books to even know if they're in a bound book or loose-leaf. I never take the books themselves to depo's or trial, you never know if you'll ever get them back.

I asked a similar question a few years ago on RPLS.com. There were many answers about how important notes are, but NO ONE could come up with a real instance where field notes were part of a court case.

It will be interresting to see the current replies.

KS

> ....NO ONE could come up with a real instance where field notes were part of a court case.

There you have it. No one will. It's the second greatest urban legend of Surveying, right after the one about never using an eraser.

At least when I believe an urban legend, I like it to be a great urban legend.

When I was starting out as a rod man, we staked a property line and the contractor was supposed to build a utility on the other side of the line. They built the box in the wrong place and ended up filing suit against our survey company claiming the property line was improperly set. Because we had stored our "set" coordinate and also had the Backsight-Foresight angles and distances as a check in the field book which verified the set coord as placed in the proper location, we were not liable for the claim. So, in this instance the field book notes were used to support our position. Its rare, but it happens. Boy was I nervous too, because I was running the gun and notes that day for maybe the 10th time or so....

I have testified in court many times and at depositions. All the lawyers want to see is what is in your file. Maps, etc. They don't know what they are looking at when they see a copy of your field notes. But we still keep them in a bound notebook.

> There you have it. No one will. It's the second greatest urban legend of Surveying, right after the one about never using an eraser.

Lol! I've never even heard of this 'bound book' urban legend. We only ever used bound books for dedicated projects that were likely to fill an entire book thru sheer work volume or ongoing duration of project - everything else was loose-leaf filed.

>... Because we had stored our "set" coordinate and also had the Backsight-Foresight angles and distances as a check in the field book ....

I'm pretty sure that a printout of the raw data file would have been even better.

I have never been asked to produce my notes for the court cases in which I have testified. If I had been told to produce them, they would have been on multiple 8-1/2 x 11 sheets that would be somewhat indecipherable to most others, except wise old surveyors.

Since advent of data collectors & GPS the vast majority of the data used to create final product is digital so my “field motes” have evolved into digital form as well. I routinely insert the standard information I used to scribe on to paper as “notes” in my raw data files, since that is where all the “real” data is anyway. I still make field sketches and such but digital photos have supplemented that aspect as well.
Welcome to digital era, it is 2011 after all.

My understanding is that role of field notes in court is almost exclusively to refresh the memory of the witness who made them. In rare instances -- possibly so rare that it's never actually happened -- they're admissible as evidence in court only when the surveyor who made them is unable to testify (e.g., dead), and even then, they would be subordinate to almost all other evidence. I can't cite any source for this, but it probably came out of some long-ago boundary class.

I only use bound books because that's the way I learned. I write in pencil and erase when necessary. My field notes are made for my convenience, not for some obscure situation that I'll probably never encounter.

I think the no-erasing urban legend and using a sharp light pencil is because sometimes what you wrote first is better than what you wrote after you erased it. The sharp light pencil is so that it leaves an impression in the paper that can't be erased. I guess this is so if Perry Mason gets a hold of it, he can get Paul Drake to investigate it and embarrass Hamilton Burger in court, again. Then of course, Della Street will admire Perry even more. 😉

The no-erasing or obliterating idea (you cross out so it remains legible) was pounded into us in college a few decades ago, under threat of flunking the lab course.

The premise seems to be that a bound book can’t be “fixed” after the fact to correct an incriminating blunder but a loose-leaf book can. I used to have an occasional chuckle by suggesting to my mentors who insisted on bound books for that reason, that, if the stakes were high enough, I would just take a new blank bound book, copy everything out of the old book (with appropriate “corrections”) and leave it on the floor of the survey vehicle for a week. Voila. A new “old” field book with “correct” field data.

Not that I would ever actually do that.

Back in the mid-70s, I was a party chief on a construction survey crew. We were doing our thing one day when the survey coordinator roared up in a cloud of dust, jumped out of his vehicle and ran up to me waving half a sheet torn off a yellow legal pad. On it were station, offset and elevation for two points.

“Drop everything and go set these two points,” says he.

“What are they for?” I asked.

“The utility company is going to lower a section of that telephone trunk line where it crosses the new freeway. They need to know where the toe of the finished backslope is on each side of centerline so when we make the cut for the freeway, we don’t dig up the trunk line. I’ve done the calculations. All you have to do is set these two stakes and grade them.”

So we did.

Five months pass. We are on another project, doing our thing, when the survey coordinator roars up in a cloud of dust, jumps out of his vehicle and runs up to me waving a bound field book.

“What the hell did you do?” he yells. “Are these your field notes?”

I look at the book and admit that, yes, those are my notes. “Why do you ask?”

“The grading contractor just ripped up that 400 pair trunk line down on the freeway! Boy, you really screwed up!”

“May I see that book a minute?” I ask.

He hands it over and I flip to the last few pages and extract the scrap of yellow paper with his calculations.

“Aren’t these YOUR calculations?” I ask. “Didn’t you instruct me to set and grade two points based on these calculations done by YOU?”

“Dammit!” says he following a brief pause.

“Do you have a set of plans?” I ask.

He produced a set and, after a couple of minutes with the HP35, I explained that, while his calculations appeared to be correct based on the mainline profile, he had apparently overlooked the fact that there was an on-ramp on one side and an off-ramp on the other side that would add about 25 feet to the mainline offset on each side.

“#$%&^!!! &^%$*&&^” said he as he roared off in a cloud of dust. I carefully refolded the scrap of yellow paper and put it my pocket.

Many of my notes are in bound books but my files are also full of little scraps of paper and I wouldn’t be afraid to spread them out on a table for a judge to look at.

Not an urban legend but a careful procedure.

Sloppy companies don't care, good ones will have procedures, such as bound books and no erasing.

Not for the courtroom as much as for the boss.

:coffee:

I agree with RFB. It's more a procedural thing like doubling angles or setting the PPM's. At the city we have books that go back spanning three different city Surveyors and several Engineers.

I've always done the strike through with a mistake and never erased. Just the way I was taught. Not really necessary but just became habit in my early years.