Engineers working with existing Property Corners and Monuments

[BAlexander]

I posted a topic a year ago about Engineer finding Property Corners and using them but withheld some info which yielded a lot of discussion. The rest of the story.

I am a post 82 Civil Engineer who has prepared a lot of topo surveys but have always had a LS by my side. In this case I offered to stake a fence by locating property corners. I had a LS on staff but his health was such that I did all of the field work in rough terrain.

A map of the boundary was prepared in the office by my LS and I went into the field to create a field map showing the existing corners and the physical features such as driveways, pool etc. We searched and found all but one corner. During the survey I found that my client and the neighbor were at odds so the neighbor turned me in for surveying without a license. Later the Board found that - since I did have a LS on staff - I was only "offering to perform Land Surveying" and the land surveying was not "Incidental" to my construction staking of the fence.

You guys are the most knowledgeable in Calif so - in your opinion, considering the procedures I followed, was I practicing Land Surveying or was the Land Surveying merely incidental to my work staking a fence?
Thanks

[LS_8750]

What do you think?

Where was the fence to be located? Were the monuments found representative of the true parcel boundaries? Were lines of title consistent with lines of survey? Were you really working under the supervision of your LS?

[pls7809]

Interesting. I always assumed that if you had an LS on staff then you could offer to survey. Did you make decisions in the field yourself, or did you consult with your surveyor prior to making any professional level decisions? Did you decide where the missing corner was located in the field and staked the location of the fence based on that?

[RAM]

Review Board Rules 404.1 and 404.2.

[Dave Karoly, PLS]

I'm not sure what the OP means but a PE can offer to survey as long as they subcontract an LS to do the actual work or have an LS employee do it. I suspect this hinges on who was really in responsible charge. Just because you have an LS on staff doesn't mean they were actually in responsible charge.

[bruce hall]

"...........but disallows civil engineers from procuring work that has land surveying as the principle scope of work."

Pre 82 engineers should be able to survey, whether it's incidental or "the principal scope of work", as long as they know how to do it.

Everything else I kinda liked in a way. Made sense until I change my mind.

[E_Page]

If the LS gave you direction with regard to the boundary portions of the work prior to your going to the field, had confidence in your ability to carry out his direction competently, reviewed and was satisfied with your work afterward, then you acted in the same capacity as any experienced but unlicensed party chief does on a regular basis, and the LS would have exercised the level of control typically exercised by the licensed supervisors of those unlicensed party chiefs.

It seems that the result of the Board's investigation is that they were satifsfied that this is how the work was performed - that the LS exercised adequate control of the work performed.

I somewhat remember your previous thread and seem to remember that you had doled out the facts rather piecemeal such that it wasn't clear (at least early in the thread) that the LS was sufficiently involved to have been in responsible charge. As you've been informed here, and probably seen by the results of the BPELSG investigation, the extent of control by someone with the proper license is the key. You may have read hundreds of survey maps, and may have seen thousands of corner monuments, but unless you've proven the knowledge necessary to properly evaluate boundary evidence and unless you've attained the proper license, you are not qualified to perform such work outside of the direction of someone who is qualified by knowledge and licence.

Conversely, I have a lot of engineering experience incidental to my 30+ years of surveying. I could adequately design a road or an 8' high retaining wall for 70% of the situations that I would be likely to encounter requiring either. In about 10% of the cases, I may recognize that there are circumstances that place the design beyond my capabilities. But it the stuff that I don't know that I don't know about designing those things that will cause problems in the remaining 20% cases.

The same holds true, in a way, for boundary surveying. Since the math is easy, 90% of all boundary surveying looks to be very straightforward, leading many unlicensed technicians and more than a few civil engineers with a couple of years experience to believe that they are knowledgeable enough to do all but the most difficult boundaries without direction from a LS. If someone has the impression that 90% of all boundaries are straightforward, they should take that as their primary clue that they are a little less than halfway to being adequately trained.

About 25 years ago, I thought that boundary surveying was among the simplest survey work one could do. They've been getting progressively more complicated since. It's not that there were more easy surveys and only the difficult ones are left. I suppose that it may be that I've got a touch of early alzheimers and have forgotten more than I've learned over the years, but I prefer to think that it's through education and experience that I've learned to recognize and account for the issues that were transparent to me in my early career because someone with more education and experience at that time recognized and accounted for those issues in the direction they gave me.


I suggest that if these types of services are going to continue to be a significant part of the work you do, and assuming you have adequate training and experience, that you take and pass the LS exams and maintain both licenses.

[Ben Lund]

I agree with Evan. I started as a PE then got my LS and was surprised how complicated boundary surveying can be. Off topic....I think we should burn all of the unrecorded and privately held survey records to simplify things. :-)

[Lee Hixson]

Excellent summary, Evan.

[7702]

If you really want informed opinions, post a copy of the BPELSG complaint and supporting documents. The devil is always in the details.

One of Mr. Frame's responses from the related thread of a year ago.

In my opinion, well said and still valid.

[LS_8750]

Evan, good stuff through and through. I should say that save the easy boundaries for the big dogs. I hardly ever get one. And also I noticed a typo in your retaining wall example, 8' should read 8".

What is a "fixed works"? When is a survey "monument" a fixed works and when is it not? A monument by definition is durable, is recognizable, is distinct, is perpetual, and contains meaning. A survey monument is fixed, it is notorious, it serves a function and it represents something. How is a survey monument not a "fixed works"?

Don't worry about me. I understand engineers with survey equipment. They by and large could not survey their way out of their shirt pockets.

[LA Stevens]

As Woodcutter pointed out in Post #7, if you are offering to provide land surveying services and do not have a licensed LS on your org chart with the board that is an owner, partner or officer in charge of land surveying it is verboten. See below for "6731.2 of the PE Act and its relationship to 8729 of the LS Act".

The same holds true for a land surveying business. The LS business can only provide civil engineering services incidental to their practice of Land Surveying. See B & P 8726.1

6731.2. Any registered civil engineer may offer to practice,
procure, and offer to procure, land surveying work incidental to his
or her civil engineering practice, even though he or she is not
authorized to perform that work, provided all the land surveying work
is performed by, or under the direction of, a licensed land surveyor
or registered civil engineer authorized to practice land surveying.
Further, any registered civil engineer may manage or conduct as
manager, proprietor, or agent, a civil engineering practice which
offers to practice, procure, and offers to procure, such incidental
land surveying work.

8726.1. Any licensed land surveyor may offer to practice, procure,
and offer to procure civil engineering work incidental to his or her
land surveying practice, even though he or she is not authorized to
perform such work, provided all such civil engineering work is
performed by or under the direction of a registered civil engineer.
Further, any licensed land surveyor may manage or conduct as manager,
proprietor, or agent, a land surveying practice which offers to
practice, procure, and offers to procure, such incidental civil
engineering work.


8729. (a) This chapter does not prohibit one or more licensed land
surveyors or civil engineers licensed in this state prior to 1982
(hereinafter called civil engineers) from practicing or offering to
practice, within the scope of their licensure, land surveying as a
sole proprietorship, partnership, limited liability partnership,
firm, or corporation (hereinafter called business), if the following
conditions are satisfied:
(1) A land surveyor or civil engineer currently licensed in the
state is an owner, partner, or officer in charge of the land
surveying practice of the business.
(2) All land surveying services are performed by or under the
responsible charge of a land surveyor or civil engineer.
(3) If the business name of a California land surveying business
contains the name of a person, then that person shall be licensed by
the board as a land surveyor or licensed by the board in any year as…

Based upon your opening OP, it appears the BFPELSG cited you for not having the LS on your org chart as required above, since you have a CE practice and can't offer LS services that are not incidental to your CE practice. Is that correct? If so, it seems like an easy remedy. You just need to make the LS an officer in charge of the land surveying. Thus the infraction would be corrected.

[Lehmann]

In the past Mr Alexander had advertised his business as offering land surveying services, including a graphic of a tripod on his business card.