MySitePlan.com Lawsuit

[Edward M Reading]

It would be nice for a surveyor or planner to attend and share some horror stories about people relying on their work product!

Way to dog this, Bryan

I just want to sit in the back and fire off questions to see how he responds. The cat is out of the bag if you have read the complaint/citation that the Board prepared in that I was the one who filed the complaint against this guy as the Board did include my name in it.

Might be interesting to show up and shake the hand of the criminal behind this dumpster fire of a court case.

On another note, as a profession, this is our chance to stand up against people like Mr. Crownholm. If we had a community of surveyors attending this meeting it would be a great showing of solidarity in standing up for what is right both in the eyes of the law as well as with the professional community.

You might want to be careful about calling someone a criminal on a public message board.

[DWoolley]

...
You might want to be careful about calling someone a criminal on a public message board.

Edward M. Reading:

Presuming there is a misdemeanor, not an infraction, tied to the violation of the B&P, can someone say criminally charged?

DWoolley

[bryanmundia]

...
You might want to be careful about calling someone a criminal on a public message board.

Edward M. Reading:

Presuming there is a misdemeanor, not an infraction, tied to the violation of the B&P, can someone say criminally charged?

DWoolley

I fixed it to say "alleged criminal", symantics in my opinion but whatever.

[Edward M Reading]

...
You might want to be careful about calling someone a criminal on a public message board.

Edward M. Reading:

Presuming there is a misdemeanor, not an infraction, tied to the violation of the B&P, can someone say criminally charged?

DWoolley

I fixed it to say "alleged criminal", symantics in my opinion but whatever.

You wouldn't think it was semantics if it was about you. lol.

[bryanmundia]

Edward M. Reading:

Presuming there is a misdemeanor, not an infraction, tied to the violation of the B&P, can someone say criminally charged?

DWoolley

I fixed it to say "alleged criminal", symantics in my opinion but whatever.

You wouldn't think it was semantics if it was about you. lol.

If I was guilty I wouldn’t care, unlike some, I own up to my mistakes and learn from them. If it is what I am, then it is what I am.

[CBarrett]

...
You might want to be careful about calling someone a criminal on a public message board.

Edward M. Reading:

Presuming there is a misdemeanor, not an infraction, tied to the violation of the B&P, can someone say criminally charged?

DWoolley

Having to argue that in court may be cost prohibitive. Especially against the wealthy deregulation crowd.

[robert reese]

RE: CROWNHOLM v MOORE, et al.
RE: SUIT
Plaintiff Crownholm's counsel Institute for Justice (IJ) has filed a suit against actions performed by employees of the Board for Professional Engineers, Land Surveyors, and Geologists (BPELSG), naming such employees "...in their official capacity..." This is a significant distinction from suing these employees individually. Here's why.
Government Code 815 notes that a public entity "...or a public employee..." is generally not liable for injury. This is known as "Sovereign Immunity" and has its basis in the concept that if one were allowed to sue a public entity or its employees, NOTHING would ever get done as public entities (government) have a hard time getting things done anyway without constant suits hanging overhead like a Sword of Damocles.
{https://codes.findlaw.com/ca/government ... t-815.html}
Specifically, Government Code 818.4 appears to apply to this situation as it is "...not liable for an injury caused by [lots of causes]...where an employee of the public entity is authorized..." Such, it seems, is the case here.
{https://codes.findlaw.com/ca/government ... ect-818-4/}
So IJ has filed a suit that could be judicially stillborn. However, it raises interesting premises regarding what is "free speech" and the deficiencies in the requirement disparities between municipal and county building and/or planning departments for site plan submittals.
RE: COMPLAINT
The complaint disavows any resemblance to boundary surveys, specifically "3. These kinds of site plans do not AUTHORITATIVELY property boundaries...[EMPHASIS ADDED]". While this is meant to be exculpatory, I'm not sure it actually is.
MySitePlan.com (MSP) indicates on its website under "DETAILED SITE PLAN | RESIDENTIAL & COMMERCIAL SITE PLANS" that "...PLOT PLAN INCLUDES EXISTING FEATURES: Property Lines"
{https://www.mysiteplan.com/products/det ... =386906890}
Nearly all of the images notes "Property Line" along the perimeter along with dimensions, Sometimes to the nearest foot or with greater precision. One showed a dimension of 20.11' from the front "property line" to the house. My particular favorite is the "MOST POPULAR" example on the "MEDIUM SITE PLAN | RESIDENTIAL page.
{https://www.mysiteplan.com/products/plo ... =386904444}
To be fair, this particular web page notes
"*This is not a Legal Survey, nor is it intended to be or replace a Legal Survey. Please verify with your building department that they DO NOT require a certified site plan prepared by a Surveyor, Architect, or Engineer. We are a Drafting Firm and do not stamp plans. Our plans are Non-Certified".
The non-certification statement brings up a plethora of other issues, discussion of which time and space prohibit here.
"certify: intransitive verb –
1. To confirm formally as true, accurate or genuine.
2. To guarantee as meeting a standard" {https://www.thefreedictionary.com/certify}
That second definition may be the crux of the matter.
So finally, the reviews on the MSP website were, without exception, 5 (FIVE!!) STARS. I quit after reading 300 reviews and I only had 2929 to go (the site boasts 3229 reviews). And virtually all of them lauded the celerity with which the product was delivered, sometimes in as short as a few hours. I will freely admit, I just can't do a topo and a boundary survey and a map in a few hours.
I'm all for entrepreneurship. And apparently MSP has come upon a potential gold mine. The wrench in the machine here is the depiction of boundaries and the relationships to physical features that are relied upon by builders, inspectors and...wait for it... neighbors (whether they know it or not.) And tort cases and the legal system usually cull the implementation of potentially costly or damaging enterprise. It would be interesting to know what experience the 1 star reviews had.
Admittedly, I do not have access to the complaint, or its mandates. Should this suit be dismissed and should BPELSG move forward with interdicting MSP's CEO, Ryan Crownholm, alleged holder of a California general contractor's license (not listed online at Contractor's Licensing Board), from providing what is basically a topo and boundary survey without doing a topo or boundary survey, MSP may have to find another site to plan on.
Should Plaintiff prevail, you, me, and the rest of us surveyors may have a promising future in forensic survey work.

[bryanmundia]

Well I believe Mr. Crownholm's case is going to be dismissed. A decision regarding Mr. Crownholm's Motion for Preliminary Injunction has been made by Judge Dale Drozd and it has been deined. Please message me and I will send you the decision as the file is too big to attach on this forum.

The next hearing date is set for January 17th to hear the defendant's (BPELSG) Motion for Dismissal. I am hopeful that this will be granted and this will be the end of this case.

[bryanmundia]

Did anyone happen to call in yesterday for the Motion to Dismiss hearing? I got pulled away and was not able to call in, I wanted to see what, if anything happened?

[bryanmundia]

Well this isn't good, Mr. Crownholm's attorneys have just filed an appeal on the judges decision to deny Mr. Crownholm his Motion for Preliminary Junction. It is time for us as Professional Surveyors to step up to the plate and be proactive in preparing an Amicus Curiae for the appellate court.

I am asking for our State organization to help and will be bringing this to the table at our next State Board Meeting.

We cannot let this guy continue to perform this type of work. The GIS Professionals are very interested and have sided with Mr. Crownholm. This decision and court case can have serious implications on our profession.

[Warren Smith]

Procedurally speaking, was the Trial Court's denial a process issue? That is, the case before it was an appeal from an administrative enforcement citation. An appeal of its decision to the Appellate Court will not raise substantive issues de novo - only a review of the decision within the District Court's judgment statements and its jurisdiction.
If you have read the judgment, it will speak to analysis and conclusions based on appellate guidance from similar cases.
Amicus curiae briefs are intended to address justiciable issues once procedural barriers are overcome.

[edited for clarity]

[bryanmundia]

Warren,

The denial of Preliminary Injunction came from the Judge ruling in the Federal District Court not from an administrative enforcement citation. This is headed to the United States District Court of Appeals for the Ninth District.

See the filing below.

20230120-Plaintiff Appeal to Denial for Preliminary Injunction.pdf

If anyone is interested in any of the court documents for this case I have them saved to my google drive. Here is the link:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... share_link

Please let me know if the link does not work for you.

[Warren Smith]

Bryan, thanks for the link.
It looks like the District Court last month did a good job addressing the allegations of the Complaint - citing other District Court, Appellate and Supreme Court decisions on similar cases.
It made a distinction between the right of free speech and the right of states to regulate conduct. Plaintiff may write articles and speak to existing regulations, but must - in the meantime - abide by those statutes.
The appeal will be limited to matters of law as propounded by the trial court's analysis and conclusions. It may be remanded as to specific aspects, but the trier of fact found that plaintiff was unlikely to prevail on the merits.

[robert reese]

On January 24, 2023, the US District Court, Eastern District of California, has filed a judgment for the Civil Case Crownholm, Et Al. v Richard B. Moore, et al. See attached files.
That judgment ordered a grant of DEFENDANTS' MOTION TO DISMISS. Most notably, the order granted the motion WITHOUT LEAVE TO AMEND (WOLTA). That WOLTA means that plaintiffs cannot come back and amend the complaint or other motions or refile. While the court has not explicitly ordered the dismissal with prejudice, the court has basically said this complaint cannot be brought back.

Mic drop.

IMO, this is just not a surprise. The complaint was destined to fail on the merits. SitePlan will need to plan on a site other than California.

[Warren Smith]

The Judge once again did a stellar job in dissecting Plaintiff's complaints based on stare decisis (I'm guessing based in no small part by points and authorities filed by Defense counsel), and foreclosed amending the operative complaints due to Plaintiff's declining to do so when repeatedly invited to by the Judge at the hearing.

[bryanmundia]

Correct me if I am wrong but I believe that the Appeal has been denied based on the attached document.

20230203 - Dismissal of Appeal.pdf

[Warren Smith]

Bryan,

This looks to be a dismissal of the appeal from the denial of plaintiff's motion for preliminary injunction. Appellant's appeal from the motion to dismiss is likely still awaiting respondent's filings.

[robert reese]

CROWNHOLM filed two appeals.
2023.01.23 - notice of appeal to district court's dismissal of CROWNHOLM'S motion for Preliminary Injunction
2023.01.30 - notice of appeal to district courts granting of BPELSG'S Motion to Dismiss.

The court of appeals' 2023.02.03 grant of CROWNHOLM'S motion for voluntary dismissal does not note to which appeal CROWNHOLM's motion refers.
And I do not have CROWNHOLM'S motion to the court of appeals.
Anyone have that?
(BTW, thank you Mr. Mundia for compiling the court docs.)

[DWoolley]

The case is currently on appeal. Today I read two amicus briefs trying to distinguish a land surveyor's map making from the map making by others.

I ask the land surveyors, what distinguishes your work from similar work performed by others?

A construction contractors or GIS technicians GPS, although on a different frequency, measures with similar accuracies as the equipment used by a land surveyor.

How does a land surveyor's license protect the public when the public measurements, using the same/similar equipment and procedures, are indistinguishable from a professionals? We invented the two monument tango/record boundary, is there special training required to do that procedure? No, generally speaking, any two monuments are as good as any other two - why can't the other do it for a site plan or similar?

The issue is further complicated by something I call "land surveyors refusing to survey" a play on "kids say the darnedest things". In a map checking capacity, I routinely ask a land surveyor to set and/or tag monuments and/or search for additional monuments and/or add a boundary note etc. The land surveyor would rather call me to refuse to do the work before asking a wealthy big box client for a few thousand dollars to monument the boundary. Similar stories for records of survey triggers, durable monuments (rather than a mag nail), or anything related to following a specification i.e. ALTA minimum standards, level runs, national map accuracies standards, the list goes on. Surveyors refusing to survey.

Again, my question is, who among us can distinguish their work from a construction contractor or GIS technician? Is it reasonable to argue land surveyors are using their licenses to hold the public captive? CAD and GPS are as common as a hammer and shovel now. Precisely, what is it that a lands surveyor does differently?

If a land surveyor is such by education and training, how is it carpenters and laborers can do it every day without incident?

Readers do not have to answer these questions to me here. I am not the inquisitor. However, a licensed land surveyor, that hopes to remain as such, should be able to make a coherent and persuasive argument as to precisely that which distinguishes their work from the others that have access to the equipment. I will start with a list things that cannot be listed:

Continuing education, nope. A four-year degree, nope. A willingness to have additional statutory regulation and/or technical standards that distinguishes land surveyors from tradesman, nope. Public agencies demanding credentialed contract staff for field and office folks, nope (some green shoots here). A licensing board that issues citations for more than 35% of the complaints filed, nope (to BPELSG credit, Kiewit paid two maximum $5000 fines for citations for a $400 million dollar project, the fines hardly serve as a deterrent). Land surveyors that refuse to sign work performed by unlicensed businesses or contractors self performing, nope. Signatory owners demanding a professional track for their union trained employees, nope. Before starting, Google "distinction without a difference" logical fallacy.

Ready.Set.Go. Who are you and what do you want?

DWoolley

[David Kendall]

I ask the land surveyors, what distinguishes your work from similar work performed by others?

Defensible resolution of boundary supported by exhaustive research and evidence gathering as described in corner notes and statement of reasoning on the face of the map.

Please come along after me and find some research or evidence that I missed on a survey. I believe that it’s possible but not common.

Also I can read cursive very well!

I agree with 99% of your statement Mr Woolley.

[CBarrett]

The case is currently on appeal. Today I read two amicus briefs trying to distinguish a land surveyor's map making from the map making by others.

Somewhat relative side note...
Maybe our maps should come with in depth technical reports. Maps can be faked, reports, not so much.
Let the riff-raff make pretty pictures, and make those pretty pictures worthless without the technical reports backing them up.

Let my site plan guy make pictures, and make those pictures inadmissible for building permits.

It's not the picture that people pay for anyway, it is all the work behind the scenes that makes our 'pictures' credible, and others not credible.
The more we hide the technical information and resist sharing it (like, OMG, I may have to explain what I did on my RS) the more we are hurting ourselves and those who rely on our product, because they can't distinguish them from "My Site Plan"

Hidden bonus, more paperwork will make our product appear more expensive.

......
Beyond that I am still wondering where we can find an average surveyor who can present a coherent and persuasive argument...
......
and we need to revise the fines by BPELSG to be commensurate with the land value, that way the contractor could pay 10% of the land value they are messing with, or something along those lines. It needs to be large enough to eat into their profit, not merely make them skip two days worth of coffee.

[DWoolley]

Old Yeller quotes:

“There’s no hope for him now, Travis. He’s suffering. You know we’ve got to do it.”

“...he was my dog. I’ll do it.”

Uncommon to get the opportunity to do something uncommon. Professional euthanasia, maybe it's time.

DWoolley

[DWoolley]

The Amicus was submitted on behalf of the land surveying organizations.

The file was to big to attach. Please email OCdirectors@oc-surveyors.org for a copy.

I am curious as to readers thoughts on the final copy.

DWoolley

[Ian Wilson]

Thanks for the Amicus file! Great reading...

"Using these technological tools alone...can result in inaccurate boundary determinations. These technological tools are only as good as their users; they do not magically convert unlicensed land surveyors into professionals. and using the tools can lead to mistakes and misinterpretations. Improved technologies may increase efficiency, but they do not necessarily translate to improved results without the careful eye of an expert."

That is a solid statement.

This should be mandatory reading for surveyors who practice in this state. It's not just unlicensed practitioners who could benefit from this.

To that end, because the original file was so big, I chopped it into four parts that meet the upper limit requirements.

[CBarrett]

The Amicus was submitted on behalf of the land surveying organizations.

The file was to big to attach. Please email OCdirectors@oc-surveyors.org for a copy.

I am curious as to readers thoughts on the final copy.

DWoolley

Sent you mine last week with thoughts and comments.

I am having issues with how we are talking about inaccuracy, and the ability of non surveying people to understand what that means. Most people will look at the word accurate, and think that means that things need to be precise. I think overall term of incorrect (meaning precision, accuracy and methodology applied by crownholm) work is likely to lead at a large variety of dangerous errors in his product.

The brief needs an editor too, someone with a bit more polished English perhaps.

here are some of the thoughts that I added for whatever they are worth:

Crownholm 2.JPG