The Board Regulates Conduct, Not Tools — and Crownholm Shows Where the Line Falls

[DWoolley]

The Board’s Executive Officer recently put it plainly: the Board does not make rules for tools. GIS, like GNSS, ground-penetrating radar, and unmanned aircraft, is an instrument, and the Board’s statutes reach the regulated activity, not the device that performs it. That is correct, and it deserves to be taken at face value. The Board is not expanding the definition of land surveying.

The full article appears in the Spring 2026 Board Bulletin, page 2: https://www.bpelsg.ca.gov/pubs/bulletin_sp_2026.pdf

A principle stated at the level of the tool still has to be applied at the level of the product, and that is where the article needs a companion. The Board regulates conduct regardless of tool. So when does the conduct cross into the regulated activity? The article does not draw that line. A federal court already did. The case is Crownholm v. Moore — the same office, and the same Executive Officer, whose declaration in that litigation took the position the article now states in print. Here is what the court found.

• The regulation reached conduct, not speech. (p. 3.)
• Function controlled, not form — the regulated act is a map providing “a professional opinion as to the spatial relationship between fixed works or natural objects and the property line.” (pp. 5-6.)
• The operative facts were specific: eight precise measurements to the boundaries and the boundaries themselves, no accuracy disclaimer, sold and delivered for permitting. (p. 7.)
• The product was, in the court’s own treatment, functionally indistinguishable from a licensed surveyor’s. (fn. 5, p. 12.)
• Local acceptance was immaterial, and departments cannot authorize unlicensed practice. (p. 8.)
• A disclaimer did not cure it — disclaiming accuracy does not, by itself, avoid a citation. (fn. 3, p. 9.)
• The Act did not reach every map, only those produced as an integral step in designing and locating specific projects. (p. 10.)
• A lawful path existed, through the informal conference the producer never used. (fn. 4, p. 11.)

One caveat, stated plainly: Crownholm is an unpublished memorandum disposition. At this time it is not binding precedent under Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. It may be cited for persuasive value and binds only the parties. Read it for how a federal court applies the conduct line, not as controlling law.

The article and the case are one message from one office. The Board regulates conduct, not tools — and, by the same logic, not labels (a site plan by any other name is a site plan). A tool does not move the conduct line, and neither does a disclaimer printed in the corner of a sheet.

By the same token, a license does not let a surveyor disclaim away the standard of care. The court framed the disclaimer point around the unlicensed — the Act “clearly does not purport to allow unlicensed persons to avoid being cited simply by disclaiming the accuracy of their site plans.” (fn. 3, p. 9.) The court did not address the standard of care that attaches to a licensed surveyor; that next step is mine, not the court’s. In my view, the disclaimer cuts harder against the licensee. For Crownholm, the “not a boundary survey” notation failed because he held no license in the first place. For a licensed surveyor the same notation does not lower the duty — it documents that the surveyor recognized the professional obligation and disclaimed it on his own work. A land surveyor would do well to take heed. Restated: a disclaimer does not excuse misconduct, and it does not relieve the obligation. I have said as much on this forum before, and I have seen it play out in litigation many times. A disclaimer and $2.25 will get you a cup of coffee.

The line is the conduct, not the caption. The regulated act is precise positional information about boundaries, delivered into a process that affects property rights, and nothing added to the document changes what it does. For the unlicensed, the notation does not avoid the citation. For the licensed, it does not satisfy the standard of care — it becomes evidence against the professional who wrote it. Either way, a disclaimer on the work product does the opposite of what it was meant to do. Work that stays clear of the conduct is no concern of the Board.

There is a deeper reason the line holds without a dictionary. Land surveying is a profession anchored in discretion and professional judgment, and the statute does not need to enumerate, in exhaustive terms, every act that is and is not land surveying. The court recognized as much when it turned aside the vagueness challenge, holding that “perfect clarity and precise guidance have never been required” and that persons of ordinary intelligence have a reasonable opportunity to know what is prohibited. (pp. 8-9.) We do not need a statutory definition of a “site plan” to know when one crosses into the practice of land surveying. The conduct tells us.

Work product that crosses into the statutory conduct described in section 8726 is the regulated activity, no matter who produced it, what tool they used, or what words they printed on it.

There is an article for the California Surveyor, if the editor so chooses, and a couple of Ten Minute Surveyor videos in the works.

DWoolley

[LS_8750]

Appreciate you cutting through this Mr. Woolley...