@jph Our Board requires written permission for any full-time licensee to moonlight. Other than that your protection is your responsibility. Who would lobby who to change that? What mechanism could be used??ÿ
I honestly don't know who or how.?ÿ But something should be done about limiting our liability in a lot of areas.?ÿ
Would a licensed plumber get sued if his employee did a side job and a pipe burst and caused $10k damage to someone's house??ÿ I've no idea.?ÿ My first guess is that they'd have no recourse, since they freely chose to hire an unlicensed plumber.
It should be the same for us.?ÿ If someone chose to hire some technician to survey their lot under-the-table.?ÿ Or even a licensed surveyor who worked on his own on weekends - has nothing to do with the company he works for
What does the board define as "moonlighting"??ÿ As a licensed professional, you would have to be a bit off the ranch to do something with the trade that wasn't the same standard, I'm supposing.?ÿ Like, if you want to hire another stamp in the office as a part time augmentation, and you want to take the over arching liability, why could the board even approach that? Seems a bit over reaching.?ÿ Doctors can practice in any facility they get privileges, and they do, and are liable individuals, but as a group same?ÿ way.?ÿ Seems like a good time to evaluate what the term moonlighting actually means, but it's really about liability and upholding the standard of practice and minimum standards in the big picture.?ÿ
When I get my LSIT registration, will I be bound by the no moonlighting clauses, as such I wouldn't be licensed, but registered.
Legitimately curious, not just engaging in pugilistic banter for fun, but trying to determine what the issue is outside of misrepresentation of the service or something with license liability avoidance.
Unlicensed work gets done all the time by people, and the consumers whom hire people knowingly to get lower prices get what they deserve, and if a licensed professional of anything is the provider, I believe they get sanctioned and or suspended or even revoked.
Interesting dialogue here for sure.
@jph?ÿ
And no, unless the employee took company truck supplies uniform and misrepresented for the work, and even then the intent of the actual activity is beyond the control of the owner. That's what "the lawyers" get all engaged with(yes I am pushing my luck with all my 'the lawyers' jabs) because they have time to do that. IANAL.
You may suddenly be "unneeded" by your current employer.
Moonlighting is old school jargon.
The new term is ??side hustle,? a job which pays a pittance in exchange for using up your stuff, vehicle, and mental health.
The employer had no knowledge of the engineer's moonlighting project, but the engineer had written letters to his client on the firm's letterhead, thus a distinction could not be made.
Moonlighting employees must consider their responsibility to their employer.
When I worked for the state highway department there was a long standing policy forbidding "moonlighting" by surveyors employed by the state, licensed or unlicensed.?ÿ Several department heads would readily recite stories about the state getting sued because of a moonlighting surveyor's actions.?ÿ?ÿ
At the time I was personal friends with the highway department's general counsel.?ÿ I asked him about this very subject.?ÿ He could find no record of any case where the state had been found liable to a moonlighting surveyor's actions.?ÿ One glaring reason was the state enjoys what is considered "sovereign immunity" against litigation.?ÿ This doesn't mean the state can't be sued.?ÿ It does however mean that the state's liability is usually limited to physical damages caused by their actions and handled as a tort claim.?ÿ None the less, counsel couldn't find any cases involving state employed surveyors operating outside of their prescribed duties.
For some reason this made me unpopular with several department heads.?ÿ It wasn't that I, or any surveyor I even knew,?ÿ was interested in moonlighting.?ÿ It was just that I felt the need for some sort of truth when it came to dealing with my employees.?ÿ The survey department eventually addressed the subject by expressly forbidding employees using state equipment on anything other than their prescribed duties.?ÿ So basically if farmer Jones wanted his R/W flagged and asked a state surveyor to do it after hours there was nothing wrong with it at long as state equipment wasn't utilized.
About the same time several of my colleagues working in the private sector scoured the court's records in an attempt to find a case where an employer had been found liable for work done "after hours" by moonlighting employees.?ÿ Nobody could find anything involving a surveyor and their employer.?ÿ Several cases were found involving service tradesmen like electrician's and plumbers, but no surveyors or engineers.?ÿ Of course this doesn't mean it has never happened.?ÿ If it has I would consider it a rarity.?ÿ
Years ago I ran a crew for an engineer and the bulk of our work was residential subdivisions.?ÿ One of our last contractual tasks was to set the property pins.?ÿ One developer client had a bad habit of never paying an invoice for sending the crew out to dig up or freshen up the lots corners.?ÿ The developer approached me about taking care of this for cash after hours.?ÿ
I told my boss about it.?ÿ Surprisingly the boss told me if I could do it and ultimately get paid that it was OK by him.?ÿ I hammered out a "for cash" deal with the developer and enjoyed some extra weekend money for quite a while.?ÿ I realize this action could be fraught with sticky situations, but nothing ever came of it.
I consider moonlighting more of an ethical issue than a liability issue.?ÿ
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Firstly: you guys seriously have enough free time to chase side work? In this insane market, isn??t everyone working 10-12 hours a day? If I wanted sidework, it would take one phone call, the only problem being I actually want to spend some time with my wife in the evenings.
I have done outside work (with my employers knowledge and equipment) when I worked in the private side, but it was for family or for myself, with no funds exchanged.
I now work for a county, and I am free to moonlight as long as the work falls outside the county that employs me. That being said, I really do not have the time. I did do a teaching gig for a year to get the survey program off the ground, and It was brutal. One job is enough.
I find it interesting that some ads by surveyors are considered unethical but moonlighting isn't.?ÿ ?ÿ
Only one time in my surveying career did I moonlight, working weekends for a retired PLS who took on jobs as a hobby to fill his time.?ÿ This guy took on survey work that most other companies would pass on, mostly deep woods swamp stuff.?ÿ I got the approval of my full-time employer before engaging in the work.
When the market crashed in 2008, most of the residential construction I was managing came to a halt.?ÿ I was a Survey Manager in a satellite office.?ÿ The company closed that office, laid off most of the employees and brought me back to the corporate office, essentially sitting around and doing nothing for a year until being forced to lay me off as well.?ÿ Collecting unemployment wasn't going to pay my bills so I took what was left of my 401K money and started my own Survey company.?ÿ After 4 years of working 7 days a week, I sold my business for a profit and took a 9 to 5 job running a Survey Department (that didn't last long as was not allowed to use CAD because Sr. Engineers caused problems changing plans and saving the changes without knowing how to draft in 3D).
In 2016 I was approached and asked to start a Survey department for a small Engineering firm.?ÿ I took the job after a few months of negotiations, and it was a huge success.?ÿ When the pandemic hit and the Governor of NJ issued his lock down order, we were in a state of pause for a few days until our attorneys got clarification that we were considered essential workers, but things didn't go on as normal, the workload actually increased, it's crazy how that worked out.?ÿ Our sixth crew will be running full time next week, we are going to be breaking ground on a much larger office building in a few months and the work continues to flood in.?ÿ I have to admit that, in the beginning of the pandemic, I was really worried though.
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I agree.?ÿ I'm hugely overoptimistic that I have that much time, and still want to be exposed to other drafting.
I'm making up for the past 25 years of not having been drafting, but have been mentored and imbued with lots of cool old school short cuts and enablements from the suffering of the masses.?ÿ I still suffer enough.
@jph nope, you got the jist of it. They have retired so no more of those "surveys" are being performed.
@jitterboogie The requirement for written permission only applies to full-time licensed employees. It is intended to keep work above board, not limit practice.
@jph Our Board requires written permission for any full-time licensee to moonlight.
I would be stunned if this survived legal challenge.?ÿ I mean restraint of trade, freedom of association... so many legal principles being violated here.?ÿ It's one thing for an employer to require it as part of an employment agreement, but I doubt the board has the legal right to meddle.
