I seldom post anything on this board but follow you guys and value your input.
There is one survey practitioner in this county (cannot give state or county since this person litigates for a living) who specializes as an advocate for his owner-clients and their lawyers. Guess you could say legal principles and practice comes in second place when someone is in the business of working with the landowner's lawyer to advocate for the owner.
This person filed an official plat map a number of years ago for the owner adjacent to the person who hired me. Apparently it was not sufficient for the owner's lawyer; the surveyor then revised and filed a second official survey that more favorably supported the lot line that the owner and lawyer wanted upheld.
One of the pages in the plat map was devoted to disproving the surveyed line that I had retraced in the senior subdivision of which my owner had one lot. The other land owner had an adjacent lot in the junior subdivision abutting the senior subdivision.
This was a matter of an overlap between the old and more recent subdivision.
I was able to find recorded evidence and physical evidence in the senior block, not to mention the junior block, to support the retraced senior lot line. The local county surveyor was satisfied and signed the survey on the first submittal. It was what we call a short form plat. He did not feel the long form plat was needed.
The other surveyor filed the long form plat map and wrote a lengthy narrative explaining why I had surveyed the line wrong and why there was nothing wrong with the junior line he/she re-established. The narrative called out my name and stated that I did not understand how to establish the line, calling into question my competence. I asked my local county surveyor how could you allow this libel to be published as an official record ? He was sympathetic and said the other person could write whatever he/she wanted and that he would not stop a personal attack in an official map.
I took the recorded plat map to the local Professional Practices Committee and they shook their heads sideways a lot, expressing how disturbed they were at this "competence assassination". They told me this person had a lengthy history of being what they called "an expensive hired gun". They sympathized with me but refused to get involved. They expressed concern for being sued themselves as a group and individually since that is what the other guy does for a living. So much for the local PPC.
I received a letter from the state board. The neighbor in the junior sub had filed a complaint against me. I then sent the state all of my evidence that supported the senior lot line. They investigated me for 2 1/2 years,(had read earlier they have been in a severe budget/revenue crunch and were trying to justify their caseload to the state legislature why they need more funding) then issued me a citation for filing a short form which my county surveyor was satisfied with,(this county surveyor is famous for being hard to please according to my fellow surveyors) and not the long form the other person had filed. They also must have bought the incompetence part of the long narrative. They cited me for that also.
The state's hired consultant whom the board actually calls their "expert" had relied on the most recent mapping information, the other surveyor's second official plat map in which he/she tried to explain why I was incompetent for accepting the senior line.
The board told me they were not in the business of boundary determination, that being the jurisdiction of the court system. (I agreed with them on that part) They declined from making comments about junior versus senior lines overlapping or from citing the other surveyor for holding the junior line. They disagreed with me and my county surveyor; they wanted the long form plat map, so I paid them their considerable review fee and prepared and filed it. Sure, looking back, I should have done the long form as it would have provided a better format to explain why the senior lot line should prevail, regardless of my local county surveyor's input.
As far as going to court, this whole thing went nowhere, probably making lawyers on both sides unhappy.
I hope this kind of behavior is rare and that we can all treat each other as professionals and not act as attack dogs for our landowner clients and their lawyers.
It is sad, but not infrequent, when justice is blind. You have been wronged, primarily by someone who is so incredibly insecure that they will do anything to appear to be right.
I offer sympathy to you. You are the one who will sleep better at night. There are those kind of people out there in the world we have to deal with. When things get tough, remember to practice something called "willpower." That is defined as the ability to suppress the almost overwhelming urge to choke the living daylights out of someone who desperately needs it. Just picture it in your mind, grin, and move on! B-)
Unfortunately all the testing, education, and ethical standards we can think up can't mitigate the fact that, occasionally, the state licenses a sociopathic prick to practice surveying.
Maybe ask a faster-talking three-named lawyer if you have a case for public/professional slander?
We've dug a really big hole over the past few decades which is really beginning to manifest itself. Our profession has been seeking someone to "police" our profession and no one seems willing to step to the plate. Most of our complaints against one another regard our differences in practice and/or opinion, both of which may result in different boundary determinations on the ground. It's most often a matter of conflicting evidence or a failure to gather/consider some piece of pertinent evidence. The difference of opinion isn't at all where the real problem lies, however.
The real problem lies precisely in the subject line of this post -- a lack of professional ethics. I'm not at all surprised that the board refused to hear evidence or make a determination of who is right/wrong regarding the boundary location. They have no jurisdiction. I'm surprised they would take the position of retaining an expert to determine if a short/long plat was appropriate. That's a local regulatory issue, not a board licensing issue (they didn't bring a charge against the county surveyor for approving it, did they?). Upholding professional ethics, however, is one of the few things that the licensing board really can and should adjudicate.
Not knowing what state you are from, but noting that other states have similar codes of ethics, following are a couple of snippets of the types of violations that are board-worthy.
>NSPS Model Standards for Property Surveys
>3. IDENTIFICATION AND RESOLUTION OF CONFLICTS
>If a Surveyor has a material disagreement with the measurements or monumented corner positions of another surveyor, the Surveyor shall contact the other surveyor and they shall attempt to resolve the disagreement.
This type of language exists in state regulations and standards of practice found throughout the country. I would venture that, in this instance, the surveyor never received a single phone call from the second surveyor. This is a direct violation of the the standards of practice which falls under board jurisdiction.
In my opinion, this is the first and foremost common ethical violation rampant in our profession. Surveyor's are rejecting one another's monuments without any warning or discussion with the other surveyor. Pin-cushions abound! It is a matter of professional courtesy, at a minimum, to call the other surveyor to discover what evidence they relied upon to set their monument. How can you reject a monument when you have no idea why it was set where it is? Such action by any professional violates ethical practices on so many levels, yet we allow such practice to continue and even snicker about it whenever the issue is brought up at a conference meeting.
>Title 16, California Code of Regulations 476. Code of Professional Conduct - Professional Land Surveying. (c) Representations: (10) A licensee shall not falsely or maliciously injure or attempt to injure the reputation or business of others.
We knowingly violate this charge every time we file a map depicting our rejection of another surveyor's monument. What does our plat say even if in silence, other than to disparage the surveyor's professional reputation? The "I'm just reporting the facts" retort is no excuse for openly challenging the professional opinion and/or reputation of the one who set the monument. I'm sure that both surveyors in this case could tell you precisely why they made their decisions. That is NO REASON to document their difference of opinion and to disparage one another's reputation in direct violation of another ethical practice.
When this complaint was brought before the board, the first question that should have been asked is, what did you (the complainant) do to attempt resolution with the surveyor? If they didn't even attempt a contact, then the board should take immediate action against the complainant. If the complainant has set points on the ground or filed a map depicting the issue, the board should include a second charge for violating the professional conduct rules.
We are a PROFESSION. One the primary features that sets a profession apart is their mutual respect and courtesy directed toward other professionals. We become so concerned with comparing ourselves against ourselves, that we fail to see the impact our infighting causes to the general public (the landowners) we serve.
Differences of opinion will arise on occasion. How we react when they arise is what will define us as a profession. When we react with professional courtesy, we will be viewed as professionals.
JBS
>They also must have bought the incompetence part of the long narrative. They cited me for that also.
>The board told me they were not in the business of boundary determination
Seems strange they can declare incompetence without deciding that you were wrong.
:good: :good: :good:
>... I'm not at all surprised that the board refused to hear evidence or make a determination of who is right/wrong regarding the boundary location. They have no jurisdiction. I'm surprised they would take the position of retaining an expert to determine if a short/long plat was appropriate. That's a local regulatory issue, not a board licensing issue (they didn't bring a charge against the county surveyor for approving it, did they?). Upholding professional ethics, however, is one of the few things that the licensing board really can and should adjudicate.
>
> Not knowing what state you are from, but noting that other states have similar codes of ethics, following are a couple of snippets of the types of violations that are board-worthy.
...
> This type of language exists in state regulations and standards of practice found throughout the country. I would venture that, in this instance, the surveyor never received a single phone call from the second surveyor. This is a direct violation of the the standards of practice which falls under board jurisdiction.
I could not agree more. As I read the original post, I was surprised that the board did not address the ethics of the situation but did address what appears to be an administrative matter as to what 'type' of plat to prepare.
It makes me wonder what exactly was stated on the other surveyor's plat.
I have disagreed with another's determination even after discussing it with them. I will always note who the other surveyor is, that I talked with them about why they had arrived at a different location, and that I disagree with them based on the evidence I have found - being careful to present the facts and not make it into an "I'm right, He's wrong" situation.
I wonder if the board came to that decision based on the long form / short form issue?
I'm not familiar with the terms because a plat is a plat is a plat in my area.
If so, that seems like a stretch to determine incompetence. Next thing you know, the spacing used to type a property description will be used to determine competency.
Without a statement of your incompetence from a judicial decision, how can you be reprimanded? Seems like there is a step missing in the process. The board just jumped on the paper evidence, which includes the libel, and made a decision. These are the issues that worry me. Even with the best evidence, you could be called wrong.
Also, I don't know anything about long/short forms being submitted to a county surveyor. I don't think our county even has an official surveyor. I've never heard of one here.
One of the things I emphasize in my ethics classes that I teach is to "GET THE FACTS". While I have no reason to doubt the facts as presented here by Bhiker19, we need to be aware that we are only hearing one side of the story. Presumably the Board had facts from both sides and reached a considered ruling - like it or not. The mere fact that the board took action indicates to me that we need to know more.
Redact the obvious and post the facts. Or you could create a hypothetical with altered numbers to protect your anonymity. We all love to review boundaries in conflict.
When I first read this post earlier tis morning I felt like there was something not all here. Yes, it's one side of the story, and an unhappy story at that.
The most telling part comes towards the end of the post when the poster admits that maybe they should have done the "long form" (whatever that means) in that it would have explained the resulting survey better. I think that if the original surveyor had done that they would have been on much stronger ground before the BOR.
I have seen instances where the "bigger" named surveyor is hired because of who they are, and still fail to prevail in the end.
I wish there was recourse, but it sounds like this was a humbling learning lesson, and maybe the other side didn't learn their lesson, yet.
Bhiker,
In my part of the world, and I have worked primarily in the same county for my whole career, I have encountered numerous situations where contacting the surveyor did not help but actually made the whole situation much worse. I can site more than a few cases where my life went downhill by discovering an erroneous survey in good faith, but was "turned in" to the State Board by the landowner, or by correctly advising a lawyer about the facts of his client's boundary, and somehow turning that lawyer against me for life, after a 20-year working relationship.
I spent over 20 years, as a county surveyor, contacting surveyors to ask them why they just set, or intend to set, multiple monuments and to date, have not been given a valid LEGAL reason. Since in my estimation about 1/3 of us set multiple monuments, and there is no specific law that prohibits doing so, we, as a profession, are an ethics bubble with no good way to solve the problems, confusion, harm, and damage that is invariably caused by most, if not all, the pincusions we set (at least intentionally).
To me, intentionally setting a new monument in the vicinity of an original monument is an insult to our predesesors. How to respond to that insult in an effective manner, after many years of effort, eludes me. Surveyors who do not think they are wrong are by far the hardest to reason with, if they even can be reasoned with.
ww CO PLS
- Have a nice day! Or, may your monument prevail over some guy's touchscreen.
I can certainly hear you here.
I think Justice Cooley said said something the the effect that surveyors are opinionated freaks of nature. Trying to reason with some of our "profession" tends to prove Cooley out.
I agree with JB Stahl's post above about what should happen. Making it happen is well, a whole different ballgame.
I had one of the most un nerving conversations of my whole career, the other day. I called another local surveyor, who ignored a big pile of evidence, and did his own thing. (There is a typo in the deed).
He proceeded to tell my how to survey. That I was to leave the lawyering to the lawyers, and that all my responsibility was to STAKE THE DEED. (Cause that is what he did).
I really hate to publish a plat, with his embarrassing to the profession survey depicted on it. (That is, to show his survey, up against mine).
Such is life.
Find senior deed, and start the world over....
Nate
I hear you Nate. But, for the life of me, I cannot understand why it should require 4 years of education and at least 4 years of boundary surveying experience to obtain a state sanctioned professional license to merely "slap some math on the ground"? Any ideas?
I actually think that this guy is playing a game... a game that holds the the idea that EVERY pot has to sit on it's own bottom, and every survey has to stand on it's own. What it does to the world be damned. This creates conflicts, which (In his mind) brings in business, and if he can roll me over, and get me to go that way too, then we have just "fed the lawyers", which is good for business.
I just don't buy it.
Nate
