One thing that amazes me is that most of the time the surveyor that causes these problems doesn't get sued.
> One thing that amazes me is that most of the time the surveyor that causes these problems doesn't get sued.
In this particular case, it looks as if BOTH surveys will show incorrect location of the original land grant line. The difference is that one used a fence as if it somehow perpetuated the original line (even though at one corner the original bearing tree is still in place about 11 feet distant from the scattered rock mound which isn't at the fence corner) and the other just pulled something out of the GIS of the GLO, apparently to dress up the map, but without thinking through the consequences of indicating that half of a tract was in a land grant other than the one within which the chain of the grantor's title fell.
So might either of these surveyors be named as a defendant?
> So might either of these surveyors be named as a defendant?
The more practical route in Texas would be to file a complaint with the licensing board, claiming specific monetary damages. I'll probably get to see how that shakes out.
Can the Texas Board fine a surveyor and compensate a victim for the damages?
> Can the Texas Board fine a surveyor and compensate a victim for the damages?
As I understand it, in Texas the BOR can and does collect fines in a disciplinary action and can require the registrant to pay money to the injured member of the public.
That's interesting. I'm not totally sure but I don't think the Utah DOPL (board) can do any more than discipline (take a license, suspend and fine).
Glenn, you know what Einstein said...
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
Glenn, you know what Einstein said...
I don't think this was an act of stupidity. Lazy... fraudulent... negligent... unethical... but not stupid. Do you think this individual could claim some form of ignorance? "Gee, I just didn't know any better." I don't. As others have said, laymen doing this would be pardonable (to some degree - even though most of these tools stipulate limitations on their use), but a licensed professional? Hell no.
> Can the Texas Board fine a surveyor and compensate a victim for the damages?
I'm thinking that the victim is likely to sue the surveyor and collect from his E&O insurer. That's were the pot of money needed to complete the fix will be. There is E&O coverage, right?
I do hope that both these "surveyors", but especially the GIS guy, is soon obliged to explain explain his methodology to the Texas State Board. No doubt that explaination will include a claim that it was just for planning purposes, etc., etc.
"Where did all these &#$%% Indians come from" ?
no, I remember now, that was Custer...
The GIS use would probably be gross negligence from my view. Would E&O pay a claim for that?
> The GIS use would probably be gross negligence from my view. Would E&O pay a claim for that?
That's why the injured party sues, and seeks to settle, before he registers a complaint with the board. That's why the E&O insurer files the board complaint.
I can not count the times clients have hunted me down to complain that I was half mile from their property and doing something completely unnecessary to their understanding about surveying.
A few have gone as far to state "If you are going to start there, then I am getting somebody else to survey my property", which was a good thing in most every case, because they were never satisfied with any surveyor's results.
The concept and meaning of "original monument" has not ever been understood my many people including lawyers, clients, title people, land managers, drillers, construction companies and/or some surveyors.
The GIS community has been a topic of discussion to add under the umbrella of services that the Texas BOR regulates.
The reasoning may be to give them a sense of quality control and perhaps some possible responsibility to the problems that arise from their work.
I've never seen any local GIS copy that does not contain a total disclamer note attached or stamped to hopefully dismiss their fault if the information is not correct.
It makes for interesting reading. You mention the GIS lines being maybe..thematic(?) in composition, but just running through the historic maps collections it's not hard to understand the whys. Sometimes the difference in original survey lines, within the same agency, can be a half mile - "I've worked on this 15 years, am quitting, you can have the issue" - much less the depiction of survey lines, over time, between agencies.
Just the research involved in this is mind boggling. Thanks for posting on Texas surveying.
The GLO GIS has HUGE errors in places, errors so large that it can't even really be considered other than disinformation.
For example, consider this piece of the GLO GIS covering part of Dimmit County. The GIS would lead a person to think that the rectangle bounded by the M. Schmidt Sur. No. 525 and the H. Castro Sur. No. 522 on the East and the C. Kirchner Sur. 520 and A.J. Lloyd Sur. NO. 632 on the West was unsurveyed land, a vacancy. However, just from examination of records on file at the GLO it is perfectly clear that the four surveys actually adjoin each other and there cannot possibly be a vacancy between them.
This GIS picture also indicates that the Castro Survey adjoins the S. Newell Survey No. 269. It does this because it omits a patented survey that exists between them. That survey was located in the 1880's when a series of surveyors reported that the calls in the field notes for the Castro survey for its Southwest corner to be the Northwest corner of the Newell were a gross mistake made in ignorance of the true location of the corner.
So, the GLO GIS isn't even close to being even correct as a diagram in places.
How is it the GLO can omit showing a patented survey, or did they forget to record the rejection of the patent ? :'(
It is interesting to look at the county roll sketches of an area, and then the related resurvey maps filed for record puporting to show the gaps, overlaps, gores, vacancies.
Unbelievably complex stuff.
> How is it the GLO can omit showing a patented survey, or did they forget to record the rejection of the patent ?
This thread gives some more of the details. I prepared a revised version of the Dimmit County map that corrects the gross errors in the current GLO County map that also appear in the GIS.
