California Surveyors Forums

Yesterday I read an enforcement case that the Board has pending against a certain surveyor who has been very vocal on this site as of late. From what I gathered from the surveyor's posts, one or two individuals had filed a complaint against this surveyor. However, when reading the Board's formal accusation, there are more than just two projects in the list of causes and they are from different areas of the state.

I was curious how the Board get this additional information to support their accusation. Do they subpoena the Surveyor's project files and follow up with all of their clients and the County Surveyors? How does this work?

Usually, the Board works mainly with the materials that the complainant provides to support the complaint, and those that the subject licensee provides in response to show or explain what he or she did on the project. In my experience, there are complainants that don't know the first thing about what the Board, or the expert they engage to review the case needs, and may need to be asked to provide specific supporting documentation. In other cases, the complainant may be very thorough and meticulous in saving pertinent documents and in documenting the facts pertaining to the complaint. If the complainant is a licensee, he or she may be aware of several violations spanning an extended period of time and several projects and may gather documentation evidencing multiple violations on multiple projects.

A particular licensee may also have the misfortune of having several different clients independently submit complaints against a licensee on unrelated projects over a relatively short period of time. If the complaints are received while other complaints are being investigated, the Board may place them all together for purposes of a Citation or for an Accusation that may lead to an Administrative Hearing.

The Board does not have much for resources to actually make an investigation (other than reviewing what is provided by the complainant, the respondent, and possibly by other interested parties or engaged experts). I am aware of only one case in which the Board actively sought evidence of a potential violation by a licensee. There may be others, I don't know.

Thanks for the information, Evan.