In all my years I don??t ever recall hearing any actual stories of any surveyor getting their license yanked or being handed some sort of punishment by the state.
Anyone got some stories? No names necessary, just interested to hear what types of offenses have been reported and actually acted upon.?ÿ
It happens.?ÿ Loss of licenses is rarer but fines are common.?ÿ I think you can find that info out the Oregon, California and Washington sites.
For several months, maybe a year, when things where slow post-2008 I attended my state's board meetings as an observer.?ÿ Every month there was discussion of this guy or the other being disciplined. Most common discipline was a fine and a requirement to attend ethics training, but a couple of guys did have their ticket punched. Failure to file Record of Survey, failure to maintain PDH's, right of entry violations were the usual stated causes but being an incompetent bozo was usually the unstated root of the effort.?ÿ?ÿ
The Washington State Board publishes a quarterly newsletter, a good part of which discusses board actions. It is actually a really good read, IMO.
If you ever have a board action against you do not try to duck it. There is no quicker way to get yourself suspended than to fail to respond.?ÿ ?ÿ If you work with them there is a very good chance of getting off with a warning and/or modest fine no matter how egregious the transgression.?ÿ
I can only think of two.?ÿ One was a grandfathered PE who became the County Surveyor and actually bartered favorable survey work including moving original monuments, not recording partitions except by deed, and recording Subdivisions based on purely record surveys with no fieldwork.?ÿ I actually complained to the Board twice and after five years they revoked his license.?ÿ It's a public record and I suspect he's now deceased so I'll name him as Pat Streamer in SE Washington, truly a crook.
The other was a local surveyor in Wenatchee Washington who was the go to guy for decades concerning private surveys but he got really sick from diabetes and kinda screwed up a lot of surveys and finally quit even recording his work, and ended up wandering around the wilderness for two weeks before SAR rescued him.?ÿ He was too medically messed up to continue so voluntarily gave up his license, leaving a mess we had to clean up which took a few years.?ÿ No criminal repercussions and I can't remember his name.
That's it.?ÿ Much more common is the Board going after non-licensed outfits offering surveying services illegally.?ÿ Usually a cease and desist?ÿ with a small fine and they return under a new name and corporate structure.?ÿ Maybe it's a good thing, offering topo and construction layout based on civil plans, who knows what drone and machine control GPS cost/benefits are worth without an LS aboard.
But an actual LSs losing their license, it's super rare.
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Only one comes to mind that I have no personal knowledge of and I only stumbled on while researching an unfamiliar LS# I recovered on a monument. The reason given for his license being revoked was for submitting falsified documents to the BOR when his continuing education requirements were audited. I'm fairly certain that there was likely more to the story that didn't make it into the public record.?ÿ
Just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get me.
Go to the Alabama board website disciplinary actions, and look up Derek Harvel.?ÿ If you're going to get your license yanked, do it like he did it.?ÿ Don't leave the north arrow off a few surveys.?ÿ Go big.
I know of quite a few who had their license revoked, or voluntarily surrendered it when they realized they didn't know what they were doing or couldn't pay the fine for their gross incompetence.
It appears quite a few states have quarterly publications which bring the news of who has been accused and what their fines were and which ones had their licenses revoked.?ÿ I've seen up to about 20 in a single report.?ÿ Not all are surveyors, but the majority seem to be.
Play nice or you don't get to play at all.
In the last 25 years Oklahoma has had 29 surveyors lose their surveying licensure.?ÿ Ten were revoked by the state board, 4 were suspended and 15 voluntarily surrendered their license in lieu of legal prosecution.
At least one of the revocations was due to a felony conviction.?ÿ This particular surveyor (also an engineer) was found guilty of bribing city officials in return for the award of municipal contracts.
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In my area of Kentucky, we have had close to a half dozen licenses revoked over the last 15 years or so with a great sigh of relief each time from the surveying community.?ÿ As a general rule, they made the rest of us look bad, including probably the worst surveyor that also turned out to be a horrible human being and spent the rest of his life in prison for kiddie porn.?ÿ We used to have a clause in surveying statutes involving moral turpitude but that term was hard to prove or define so it got dropped.
?ÿ A few just bucked the system on continuing education which is a no-win situation.?ÿ Our board publishes a quarterly magazine with all of the disciplinary actions that are certainly interesting to read.
..We used to have a clause in surveying statutes involving moral turpitude but that term was hard to prove or define so it got dropped..
I've always wondered about this line in our Oklahoma Statutes (Sec. 475.18) concerning behavior that is considered contrary to our rules of professional conduct:
13. Habitual intoxication or addiction to the use of alcohol or to the illegal use of a controlled
dangerous substance;
The illegal use of a CDS is a felony in OK and falls into another category mentioned in OK statutes, but I've often wondered how hard it would be to define "habitual intoxication" in a court of law.?ÿ Ethanol is not illegal.?ÿ And intoxication is not against the law in OK as long as you're not in public.?ÿ But the definition of habitual might vary from person to person.?ÿ A frat boy and a tee totaling Baptist minister surely wouldn't agree on this subject.
Just one of those things that we need to either "drop" from the statutes or properly define.?ÿ
I worked a for a client who had problems with her neighboring parcel created by 4 different surveyors, one unlicensed, 2 licensed with not so good reputations, and a fourth solo operator with a general lack of experience. The attorney asked me to gather reviews from the board about how 2 lost their license and I was amazed, but happy when I saw the results/recommendations from the board since local surveyors had been confronting surveys from the 2 surveyors for years. One was required to take a 4 year ABET approved curriculum with?ÿ a minimum of 4 years under direct supervision from a PLS then past the state exam. The second had his license?ÿ removed for life without recourse. The first surveyor's work covered about 4 counties, the second surveyor was responsible for so many surveys in our state the paperwork was about 2" thick. Surveyor No.1 later lost his license in a neighboring state, surveyor No. 2 passed away about 6 months after revocation.
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@tommy-young Interesting that his Engineer Intern certificate is still active
Only license I know of as being revoked.?ÿ
Working as a tech, right before I applied for licensure, I prepared DLLR Exhibits #9, 12, 13 & 14; so I put this one as an example of my experience on my application knowing that the board was familiar with it.?ÿ?ÿ
https://www.dllr.state.md.us/license/ls/pdf/04-LS-05.pdf
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I know of two in the southeast who lost their licenses due to felony convictions and one in the midwest who lost his license for refusing to comply with a board disciplinary action.
We used to have a clause in surveying statutes involving moral turpitude but that term was hard to prove or define so it got dropped.
Similar here.
One of my university classmates got several years jail time for embezlling millions of dollars from our public health system.
Some how he managed to keep his licence 🙁
habitual would point to at least one or More DWI convictions.?ÿ That's what we had in Colorado and is likely similar in most states.
Being drunk is legal. Being drunk or drug impaired behind the wheel isn't.
Also, the direction this applies to is also maybe you're drunk while making a legal decision i.e. professional opinion like signing a legal document like a Survey plat, just my suspicion in this discussion.
If you're habitually intoxicated you're not legally fit to sign, not obligate the public safety to your potentially dangerous mistakes.
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My $0.02
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I'm aware of several in California that have either had their license revoked or voluntarily surrendered it.