California Surveyors Forums

Evan......No. 2 conveniently sidesteps the point that I made about Jane Doe, namely, the expectations and rights of the public.

And as for: "Yeah, I could have had something to share, but hey, that's not MY responsibility," that's reminiscent of the PC trouble that Jimmy Carter got into one time. Something about, if you enjoy looking at women with lust, you've committed adultery already. So it's kind of a "reverse Carter:" if you contemplate doing something worthwhile, but eventually elect not to, you've committed some sort of sin, or, at the very least, have opinions that are thereafter considered irrelevant, or unworthy.

:(

Great commentary. Not to add anything else to this but the aqcuisition of these records costs money. I paid for them out of my own pocket and the maintenance of them cost money and I continue to do that. I save everything including notes and calculations (old school before computers). They are all evidence - valuable evidence I might add.

I do a lot of forensic work in a lot of places and in many instances, the best evidence can be found on a topo survey. By and large, these are not recorded but if I need to see where certain features are or if I am working on a slope failure or assisting in a landslide repair, my best evidence is usually the unrecorded topo map that shows what was there before the event.

Topos are not recorded nor filed yet they are good evidence. What do we do with these?

Good comments all.

I am not sure that the public is served by giving these files to a county that does not have the resources to properly index, file, and distribute. How is this a service to the public. The county surveyor excluded, I suggest that county employees will not put the same importance on these files than the current private company does. But we should hear from the horses mouth, as I suggested previously.

I do not read that Evan's No. 2, implied that Hixson comments are irrevelant or unworthy. I did read that the comments have a hint of hypocracy. You could of acquired, indexed and preserved unfiled records; you decided not to, for what ever reason (would be nice to know why, so we do not event stories of why); and now you condemn the surveyors that actually preserved these valued documents for not giving them away and taken a financial loss each time you comply with someone's request for said records.

Maybe I missed it, but nobody mentioned the main reason surveys weren't filed is because they didn't have to be!

Lehmann wrote:Old surveys were to have been recorded also, I see that as far back as March 31, 1891 that under the land surveyors act, that Sec 11 stated that within 60 days after a survey relating to the sale of lands, or the retracing or establishing of boundary lines, public roads, trails or other has been made by a licensed surveyor, he shall file with the Recorder of the county in which such survey or any portion thereof lies, a record of survey. Sec 13 states that upon failure of licensed survye to comply with the requirements of this act, and the furnishing of satisfactorry proofs of such fact, the state surveyor general must revoke his license.

I think that a lot of us think that surveys were only required to be recorded fairly recently (60's+/-?)

Dave L. - this was posted earlier in the thread.

I think ALL surveys were not required to be filed until 1985.

Jason read it right. Lee, you have every right to hold whatever opinion you wish on the subject. But when you condemn others who have done a good that you merely contemplated for wishing to recoup some small part of their investment by asking for a reasonable research and copy fee, you should expect to have your hipocrisy pointed out.

Telling us what you would do if you had taken responsibility for maintianing that records set you could have had means very little, because you did not invest in those records, and your perspective is very different for that lack of action.

I never implied that you did wrong by not obtaining those old records. Deciding to take them or deciding not to are both valid decisions, and it was yours to make. The sin of hypocrisy comes in when you put your supposed professional/public service virtue on display by telling us what you would have done had you taken those records.

It's so much easier to be magnanimous and hold these oh-so virtuous sounding ideals when it comes to what to do with other peoples' property than it is to give away your own.

If you feel so strongly that all these records should be public property, then put your money where your typing fingers are. Search out old surveyors' records, get the surveyor or his heirs to give them to you, or just buy them, sort them, index them, in some cases repair them, then donate those records to the counties within which each project existed.

In many cases, you may find counties unwilling to take them. Will you then invest in maintaining a stable storage environment? Are you willing to invest the 10s of thousands of dollars Michael has, put in the time or pay others to sort and index them, continue paying storage for them, and still freely give copies to whoever asks whenever they ask?

You are welcome to your opinion. I'll never deny you or anyone else that. But if you are going to criticize others for doing something in a way that you think you would do it when you chose to not even take the first step, I'll gladly invite you to invest as they have before offering your criticisms.



To clarify my own position. I do not hold the belief that surveyos were not required to be filed prior to 196? or 197?, but it is a commonly held belief of many. It was also common in many parts of the state that surveys were only filed when the client requested it be done. As a result, there are thousands of existent and recognized monuments for which no map was ever filed.

When I run across one, I check several sources in an attempt to locate an unfiled map or field notes. These sources include the landowner, (sometimes) adjoiners or previous owners, County Historical Museaum, County Surveyor's office, other practicing surveyors, old deeds. If any of these lead me to other possible sources, I check those as well. I've only encountered one time when the surveyor holding the records wanted to charge an amount well higher than an amount to recoup costs. I was a tech working for another surveyor at the time. My boss passed on that map, letting the clients know of its existence, its potential significance, and let the clients make the call. Most often, I've been provided copies of such records at little or no cost. Maybe it's because I ask nice.

If I am fortunate enough to find pertinent records, I evaluate them as I would anything I might find through official sources. I would be negligent if I didn't.

I have not obtained any surveyor's collection of old records, nor have I had or sought out the opportunity to do so. If I did, I might donate them to the County Historical Museum, which has an extensive collection of such records, or I might not. I don't know, it might depend upon how much I had to invest in them.

Point is, I think that if anyone who has such records provides them for free or for nominal cost, that's great, but if someone who has such records charges enough to cover costs of in-house research, copying, and some amount to offset records maintenance, it would be unreasonable and hypocritical of me to say they have no right to do so.

Well said Evan. And thanks for acknowledging the efforts and communal investment some of us have put and continue to put into the profession. As an aside, no one paid me for the tiepoints.com website. That was a very costly and time-consuming endeavor. If it helped someone, than it was worth my investment whatever it was and continues to be.

Years ago Curt Brown and I wrote a book together about local surveying history. We spent thousands of dollars developing the material and we basically gave it away. Curt wanted to get the information out before he passed away and he invited me to work on it with him.

My grand opus, "Lay of the Land" book took 18 years to write and I am pleased that it has proven to be a valuable tool to the surveying community. I will never recoup that investment of time and resources as I traveled up and down the state researching that material. (See: http://www.pallamaryandassociates.com/b ... eLand.html)

We are at a critical juncture in the profession and I am pleased that this issue has generated such dialogue. Your point is well taken. There is nothing stopping anyone from tracking down old surveyor records, indexing them and storing them and then making copies, paying for staff time and postage all at no cost. It is a grad idea, albeit, a poor business model.

Over the last 7 years, I have paid a GIS consultant to assist me in converting old raster imagery for scanning and georeferencing as some of the records I acquired are so old, they are falling apart. I recently purchased a high quality scanner and have hired one of my sons to scan very old field books which incidentally, were written in in color. Much of the data is color coded. Clearly the notes are more valuable than the plats. Sadly, because of cost prohibitions, many of the counties still use only black and white scanners.

There used to be a very prolific surveyor who used to work in San Diego. His name is Norm Glover (LS 1880) and records were donated to the County. Despite the county's efforts, because of inferior microfilm/scanning equipment, the quality is oftentimes very poor. Still it was a valiant effort. Unfortunately they threw the field notes out. That was too bad as it showed his control monuments. His plats only showed the results and not the evidence that got him there. in 1985 my wife and I travelled to Fort Bragg at our own expense to interview him about the records as well as to learn about how he laid out some old subdivisions. (Answer: he did many with a stadia board and the corners were plus or minus a few feet!)

There are other old time surveyors and engineers across the state who are either retired from surveying or about to enter the great beyond. These individuals should be sought out and interviewed before they pass on. I have done this and I will be posting some oral interviews I conducted with a couple of them. One is of an interview I did with my old friend Curt Brown. I learned a lot about surveying around San Diego from him. As you know, the vast majority of the maps and cases he references in his books are taken from San Diego. He and his partners did a lot of work across San Diego and the majority of his work is not filed or recorded.

On a personal note, my door is always open if someone needs some help locating records either in my possession or in inaccessible locations. If anyone wants to assist in my goal to locate or preserve old survey records, feel free to send me a list of unrecorded survey records and I will post them on the tiepoints.com site. Anyone can purchase a high quality scanner and they can capture all this valuable imagery. On my first pass, I spent 4 to 6 hours every evening for about 3 months to electronically compile the records.

The only way we, as a profession are going to elevate our stature is by being devoted to a common cause and goal. Time and age destroy these old notes and plats and I would estimate that about 85% of the surveys in California are not filed or recorded. Let's work together preserving this information.

Again Evan and the rest of the group, thanks for your contribution to this important subject.

"Condem others"!? I'm calling you on that, Evan. You're out of line. Go back and read my posts. I never did that. I never evan came close to that. In fact I acknowledged the validity of the opposite point of view.

Good point Michael. Our livelihood depends and our fraternal relationships and professional courtesies publicly and privately.

See Section 11


I'm in agreement with Michael. The files, hard copies and field books are usually worth more than the map. I frequently go beyond the recorded maps to find out what really happened.

I also agree with Evan. Until you expend a lot of time and expense preserving historical records, it's very difficult to say what you'd do. Every archive I've acquired takes an unbelievable amount of expense to make it searchable and to provide records.

I once had a Title Officer drop all of the title maps off at my office because he new I would catalog them and take care of them. The Title Company was throwing them out. Many of the maps are old surveys or they have deed information on them. Thank goodness he new I was interested.

I expect to get paid for my time and storage. Why would anyone in a profession not value another professionals time who is helping them do the job they were hired to do? If you are just looking at a map, you usually dont have the whole story.

How do ALTA surveys fall into this debate? A good ALTA can be a very valuable piece of evidence. These are not recorded. Does that mean they are invalid surveys and not to be trusted?

"There used to be a very prolific surveyor who used to work in San Diego. His name is Norm Glover (LS 1880)"

A bit off topic, but Norm worked in the Yolo County area in the late '50s and early '60s, I believe. I've followed some of his work around here, and I regularly see his tags in the sidewalk a couple of blocks from my house.

P.S. Mike Walters attributed some comments about Sac County to me, but I think he was mixing me up with Steve Gardner. I'm aware of unrecorded maps in Sac -- I recall seeing many of them when I worked for the Spink Corporation in the early days of my career -- but I'm not sure who Steve and Mike are referring to. But then I don't do much work in Sac anymore outside of the occasional geodetic project.

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Thanks Lee for raising this subject. It’s obviously an important one, and is sure to generate some positive outcomes in terms of sparking efforts in preserving these records. Sometimes that example gained from other’s efforts is all it takes to trigger some inspiration to follow suit.

Our County Surveyor from the 1970’s or 80’s (I believe that’s the correct time period) started a Surveyor’s Library when these unrecorded surveys started popping up and he wanted to get copies into a centralized location here at the County Surveyor’s office. We have more than 800 now and they are indexed and available. This collection grows and we treat them like the lost scrolls (I exaggerate, but we do recognize their importance in sometimes being the key to a particular boundary solution).

In addition, we have collections of several deceased surveyors, retired surveyors, and businesses that no longer offer surveying. We assure them we will maintain the records and make them available. True, finding space and getting them indexed is quite a task, but that’s where our partnership with the local CLSA chapter comes in. If you ask, surveyors fall over themselves volunteering to contribute time and whatever else it takes to assist in this effort. I think the County Surveyor’s office is the best place for these records. In the last few days, 12 thick rolls of maps, and 8 boxes of field books from a local firm were delivered to my office. They may not currently be in the most organized fashion and are temporarily stored, but believe me, CLSA will be notified of their existence, will be asked to help me with them, and they will stay on my radar until properly catalogued and made available to all.

A local, currently practicing surveyor once did a presentation for our local chapter on his entire knowledge of local collections and who is in possession of them. It’s an indispensable list. My hats off to that surveyor for trying to get us all on the same page in the name of professionalism. I feel a responsibility to catalogue all of this for easy access. Together we’ll get there. As a final note, I know of no local surveyors who charge others for research at their offices. That’s just a local custom, and I acknowledge, we’re in a smaller tighter- knit community. But I have no problem with those who do charge for their time. I don’t find that unreasonable.

Now I just need to get it all on line. Easy enough, right?

Dave Ryan,
Humboldt County Surveyor
Eureka, Ca.

Lee,

Perhaps "condemn" was a strong choice of words, but let's consider what you've posted:

From Post #11: “My suggestion? I would recommend that our code of professional ethics be revised to state that it is, in fact, unethical to NOT share files of unrecorded surveys. At the very least, it should be made clear that, for the "protection of the public" the only ethical posture is to cooperatively share old survey information.”


Not sharing records [for free or nominal cost - assumption based upon your other comments] is unethical? That sounds a little like condemnation.


Excerpts from Post #14: "It would have been done, first, as a way of respecting and preserving his valuable files. And second, because it would have benefited my own practice. The fact that I would have to expend time and energy to take such a venture on just came with the territory."

"Would I expect any/every other surveyor to look at it the same way? No. I can understand someone wanting to try and recoup their expenses.
In the first case, I strongly lean toward expecting them to charge very little, if nothing, to give out files. Their files are already indexed. To not charge would be their own good faith gesture to finally provide access to the public something that should have been free in the first place. I'm talking about the general public, not the original clients--rather, those who had the expectation that they could walk into the Recorder's Office and examine copies of any survey maps they felt they need to, and/or purchase copies for a minimal copy fee. After all, they "should have" been available for the public to inspect, for free, in the first place."

"And as for copy expenses, if I want to I can go to the Recorder's Office and take digital camera shots of any maps I want to. For free. If I want copies they are a few bucks each. From the public's perspective, it seems to me that they shouldn't be more burdened from one category of survey record, as compared to another."

"Now, if one does feel it acceptable to charge for copies, shouldn't it be only for the reproduction costs only? A few dollars? Should the public have to shoulder all other costs associated with a private firms decision to take over another surveyor's records?"



Here you pretty much say that you wouldn't condemn someone for wanting to recoup some costs, but then go on to imply that if you had such records, you would take the moral high road and not charge. You suggest that it is unfair for a surveyor who has purchased the records of another to expect a member of the general public, your "Jane Doe" to shoulder the costs of preserving those old records.

First, Jane Doe would not be shouldering the costs. The surveyor who purchased the records has already shouldered the cost and continues to shoulder continuing maintenance costs.

Second, unless Ms. Doe is made aware of the fact that Surveyor B is now in possession of Surveyor A's old records, she would have no idea where to find the record. The vast majority of those who would be requesting copies would be surveyors who have found evidence of an unrecorded survey.

Third, Ms. Doe wouldn't even have the option of obtaining a copy of that old map if Surveyor B hadn't preserved the records. Many, if not most of us have heard of some old prolific surveyor's records of some past era being eventually thrown out by his widow or kids who had no idea of their potential value and saw no need to store dad's old business records from before he retired in the 60s. All of those records are forever lost because other surveyors were either unaware of them until it was too late, or decided for whatever reason that it was not up to them to preserve those records.


No, you didn't outright condemn anyone, but you implied that anyone who does not freely give away that which they paid for and put in the effort to organize and maintain, that who have willingly done what you decided not to do and thus have what you do not have, is unethical. You implied that these
people have a lesser sense of professional and public responsibility than you based upon what you think you might have done had you been willing to take the first step which was available to you at one time.

What you propose is that government, via a Board Rule, require a surveyor to freely give away that which they invested in and put effort into, a redistribution of informational wealth, if you will. What you want is survey welfare, to place even more responsibility upon those who have already taken on responsibility you chose not to accept. Someone else's something for your nothing. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but that's what you propose.



Dane suggested a few posts back that forming a fund to purchase these kinds of survey records for the purpose of putting them in the public record, I suppose in the County Surveyor's office, would be a good thing to do.

I agree. I would contribute to such a fund and put in some of my very limited time to help index such records if need be. You want to propose that at the Chapter meeting, Lee, and you have my full support.

You want to go out and purchase such records on your own then donate them to the County Surveyor, or maintain the records yourself and provide free copies to fulfill any and all requests as they come in, then your previous posts about what you would do gain some substance. Until then, saying how professionally responsible you would be had you not declined to take the first step in that line of responsibility, really undermines your position.

By the way, whatever became of Mr. Santon's records?

Steve...

Likewise, I believe that "it's at least borderline unethical not to share data at all." A firm recently refused a research request of mine. They refused on the grounds that it would create liability for them. They didn't explain any further. This sounded unnecessarily paranoid to me, thus the question in my original post.

In case anyone's confused, or in case my positions have suffered through the course of this thread, yes, I am against a surveyor or firm refusing to cooperatively share unrecorded files in their possession. I think that is professionally unethical.

As to charging for copies (this is a completely different point, by the way)? I've already said that I would go along with that, but that it should be a minimal fee.

I applaud surveyors who do what they can to, not just preserve, but to disseminate unrecorded survey files. The most important thing is that they make them available.

In the case of Ed Stanton, I talked to his son and he told me that he fully intended to make them available. I figured, since they share the same last name, since he resides in the same town as his father did, and since the son was doing land leveling, it would be far more likely that other surveyors would find those records via him, than via myself.

Steve/Lee,
It is unfortunate that you both had bad experiences with holders of unfiled info. It certainately explains the strong position that you hold Lee. You would hope that a normal adult and colleague would be more emotionally adjusted than that. When I performed research at the request of another surveyor, I typically would not charge at all for copies or the research, unless I knew it would be a time consuming effort. I think that being forced to do anything that puts you at a monetary disadvantage is just wrong. The people that hold these records you would hope do it for the right reasons, but as we have read, some do not, very unfortunate. Those surveyors should be called on their ethics.

Mike,
Again, I would like to say thank you for your time and efforts. No doubt all of us are grateful you and taking action in saving these precious records. I agree with most that you should be able to charge whatever you want or give it away. I don’t believe this is the issue.

You mentioned some other documents that are not filed that control boundary locations, namely topographic and ALTA surveys. If an ALTA triggers the mandatory filing of a record of survey then that is where you will find your boundary evidence. If the ALTA does not trigger a record of survey, the existing PUBLIC records should suffice. I believe that only a small percentage of boundaries need topographic mapping information to locate boundary lines.

I see the standard of care for boundary location involving title research of record documents, physical evidence, and oral evidence from witnesses. Title companies have a similar approach. I do not believe the standard of care includes, retrieving, reviewing, and researching the records of the 112 individuals listed in the CLSA San Diego Chapter Private Records Index. I can only guess this list is not all encompassing so where do you draw the standard of care line? The title company is not expected to come up with an executed grant deed that has not been recorded and neither should the land surveyor.

If we want to raise the bar for standard of care and provide access to these privately held records I believe they should be located publicly and not privately. The County will not go bankrupt or be sold to a new owner who refuses to provide these records, whereas a private company might. As far as I can tell, Humboldt County is the only one that has chimed in and they have a very impressive strategy for these private records.

If it is true that the county just doesn’t have the resources, know how, or the desire AND we don’t want to pass legislature forcing the counties to do their job THEN I would suggest helping the counties through volunteer hours and money. Has San Diego County said NO to these records? Are they willing to accept volunteer hours and funds to get these records into the database? At the very least a link to the websites where these records are held should be on the counties mapping page.

San Diego County will gladly accept the records and they have in the past and we are all thankful for that. As to the evidence outside of the public records, much if my work involved locating additional evidence that can be used in determining the location of lines and features. As noted, I do a lot of forensic work involving insurance claims regarding landslides and road easements. I have three cases going on right now regarding the historic location of a disputed road and road easements. In terms of evidence, old topographic surveys and other survey records are the best evidence we have as to where the road was. An old topographic survey allows us to reconstruct pre-slide site conditions so we can see how much dirt moved and where it went. An old ALTA that provides tie lines to adjacent property lines might be the best evidence as to where the lines were located. The point I am making is that evidence comes in many shapes and forms and until you look at it all, you just never know what its value is.

As to the applicability of standard of care and the real world of litigation, I find these vary on a case by case basis. As a general rule, whoever has the best evidence will usually prevail. If a surveyor finds a stamped surveyor's monuments at the corner of a property he/she is surveying and it disagrees with their procedure, I feel they are negligent if they do not inquire about the monument. I also think that is true even if they accept it. That is the highest value of these records I believe.

Mike,
In your opinion, is the surveyor negligent if he does not search after unrecorded documents held by private individuals?

No, that would seem excessive. I do believe and I have testified in court that if a surveyor locates identifiable monuments set by a licensed land surveyor, that if he/she rejects those monuments without researching them, than he/she is negligent. When it is in your face and quite obvious, one cannot stick his/her head in the sand. If, after making a diligent attempt to locate the records and after documenting those efforts, a decision is made to reject the monument, than a thoughtful decision has been made, good, bad, wrong or otherwise. Evidence needs to be evaluated and research needs to be conducted. Even though you find the records, the procedure might not be acceptable and you can reject it if you want. If you don't understand the evidence and you don't what was found or done, that is a bad decision. How hard is it to make a phone call or bring the issue up at a chapter meeting or otherwise?

I was involved in a case where another surveyor had prepared a map and it was in the process of being filed when he died. The client contacted me to help out. I did and I was trying to verify the procedure. In doing so, I could not locate information on one of the monuments. After researching things, I discovered that he had located the monument 30 years ago and had solid ties to it. He never filed anything at the time as he did not set anything. Once I had his ties in place, I could verify the location but not the monument as it had been torn out years ago. He had the best evidence and I was able to prove that. I would have been negligent if I had rejected his procedure without first investigating.

I think we get into the area of standard of care versus negligence.

I like your question. Thanks.

Mike,
I like your answer and I think we both would agree that a surveyor who fails to identify a record monument as such is probably practicing outside of the standard of care. I have many cases from the BPELS complaints that have found the surveyor guilty of negligence in this regard. It seems the surveyor is negligent because the records are easily accessible and part of the public records.

There will always be those boundary surveys that need to go above and beyond research of the public records. If these unrecorded documents were accessible through the public record this would force surveyors to use them (or be negligent) and therefore would protect the public.

Why wait until the boundary dispute goes to trial where the “expert” surveyor is called upon to finally show both sides and the court that the best available evidence was held by a private firm who’s name may or may not be on a list produced and kept to date by a local CLSA chapter.

I would expand a little on the previous good answers. I think that a good standard of practice includes keeping your eyes and ears open, asking questions of land owners in the area and other surveyors (especially with the low numbers), all with the goal of uncovering any, and all, evidence that could impact your survey. On the list of such questions is, "Are you aware of any unrecorded surveys having been done in the area?"

After a while you develop an understanding of the geographic area that Surveyors X,Y&Z used to practice in. If there's a chance they worked in your current area of concern, I think it's prudent to inquire about it.

Is it negligence if you don't? Hard to say. But I don't think it's impossible to imagine a judge thinking it would be.

Lee,

I think that you and I agree on more than we disagree on as to this subject. Going back and rereading my posts, I can see where my tone or presentation was too combative. Please consider this an apology in that regard.

Refusing to provide copies because it may "create liability" is lame, at best. It conveys one of several messages: 1) We know that survey was performed way below the appropriate standard of care and are afraid and ashamed to let anyone see that; 2) We are legally clueless and don't know what "statute of limitations" means, have no idea what may or may not open us up to liability, so assume everything will and act accordingly; or 3) We're just intractable cranks who see no benefit to cooperating with any of the competition and won't provide any information about anything at any price.


If the surveyor who set the points of the unrecorded survey were still practicing and holding the records, I'd think that, technically, he could still be compelled to file that map. But I'm not sure that would be worth the trouble.

Hi, Evan......I'm cool. No problems here.

And, as further background, back when I got my license in 1980 I was the new kid in town and sometimes found it hard to get copies from some of the older firms in Northern California. In one of them (MHM) a guy named Ed Hanlin worked there and he was an excellent surveyor. Not only would he freely give me copies of old records, but he took me into the back room and showed me their large, hanging index maps. Many times he took me back and we ran copies together and discussed the business. We shared research knowledge and resolution ideas. In my book, Ed set the standard for cooperation in this regard. He's retired now.

I've thought about this topic ever since then. It comes up all the time and I can attest to anyone that this is a very valuable resource to consider. Many a map has been strengthened by unrecorded projects from older surveyors and engineers. My hat's off to them.