https://www.wect.com/2023/12/20/federal-court-decides-favor-retired-engineer-told-by-state-not-talk-about-math-public/
Nutt used his experience as an engineer to give his opinions about the designs of public works on the internet.
For those curious but don't want to bother opening the link:
Damn, and here I was really excited for the Forbidden Math lecture, like exposing why dividing by zero is actually a government coverup and how imaginary numbers are actually real but from a shadow dimension.
The engineer was critiquing NC infrastructure
Well, good, a lot of North Carolina road infrastructure is dangerous bullshit, and members of the public shouldn't be stymied by state panels from pointing out that road deaths have been increasing in North Carolina, despite fewer vehicle miles traveled.
Someone needs to be fired for this happening in the first place. Then the lawyers that took this to court need to be fired for not just bowing out the second it was filed.
A license, not a permit. Permits are typically issued for specific projects, while licensing is basically a state's way of saying you're credible in your field and a certified professional (usually in a leadership position, ie stamping approval on drawings), as well as in a knowledgeable position to take on legal liability.
This isn't quite the full story. The OP is editorialized clickbait. The engineer wasn't just "criticizing" NC infrastructure, he was testifying in a lawsuit against it, and the defense complained about it to the NC board of examiners for engineers because he did not have a license. The board then sent him a letter saying they were investigating him for practicing engineering without a license.
“Wayne’s troubles began when he agreed to help his son, Kyle, a North Carolina attorney, with a case about a piping system that allegedly flooded a few local homes. In his deposition, Wayne testified truthfully that he was not (and never had been) a licensed engineer. In fact, like the majority of engineers nationwide, Wayne was not required to get a license since he worked for a company under the state’s “industrial exception,’” according to the Institute of Justice.
Source: https://www.wect.com/2021/06/10/retired-wilmington-engineer-files-federal-lawsuit-against-state-board-claims-first-amendement-violations/ (on the same site, linked in the OP)
So it's still stupid, but it's not as stupid as the OP is making it out to be (for those sweet sweet clicks).
The title is a bit misleading. The state went after him because he doesn't have an engineering license in the state. I used to be a P&C insurance agent and one of the things that we were cautioned about was using our expertise in insurance outside of our job duties. There is a degree of liability there that you don't really want to be taking on. While on the job, you are covered by professional liability insurance if you make a mistake that causes harm to clients. Outside of your job though, the company you work for has no obligation to protect you as you aren't acting as an agent of that company on your own time. In this case, itd be a bit of a stretch to equate the two in that there isn't really a scenario where him talking about the infrastructure causes the state harm as far as a court would be concerned but I can kind of see where the case might have even gotten to court in the first place rather than dismissed off the bat as frivolous by the judge.
But he was just talking about engineering things on the internet, as far as I can tell. Doesn't feel like he should need a license for that
Seems like someone on the NC Board of Examiners and Surveyors didn't like being called out so they tried to bully him into stopping and it backfired
You should check out what happened to Chuck Marohn in Minnesota: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/5/23/lawsuit
A fully-qualified engineer discussing the politics of engineering -- not acting in any way as an engineer -- fined, censured, and defamed in the public record by the state board of engineers. Because of a pretty obtuse technicality that absolutely no reasonable person would have interpreted as an issue and which only exists in the record thanks to actual perjury. All because he expressed sincerely-held beliefs as part of his political advocacy that could be interpreted as very embarrassing to the (incredibly incompetent) board. Things that even the board acknowledged were not related to the practice of engineering but that didn't matter to them.
These conservative organizations do not care about your civil rights. They only care about not being embarrassed. They will wield the powers of the state to silence anyone seen as a dissenter without shame or remorse. The guy in this article was very lucky indeed a federal court was willing to take the appeal. If they get any power over you, they will use it to get you to get you to bend to knee.
He lost in state court because he signed an affidavit that said he hadn't referred to himself as a professional engineer when he didn't have a license, and the court found that he had done that and his federal lawsuit was dismissed about as soon as it was filed as not being significant enough to intervene in ongoing civil enforcement actions.
https://mn.gov/law-library-stat/archive/ctapun/2023/OPa221099-041023.pdf
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/minnesota/mndce/0:2021cv01241/194678/20/
I mean the fact that he had a license accidentally let it lapse then was able to get it back doesn't change the fact that he was and is a professional engineer.
Yes but during that period he didn't have a license.
Without a doubt it's someone on a vendetta against him, but those regulations aren't weird, hidden ones.
If you call yourself a professional engineer, that's a protected title and you must actually be a professional engineer. Part of being a professional engineer is paying dues to the organization in your area.
This is not true. I can call myself a doctor a lawyer or a cop or anything like that and it is protected speech so long as I am not attempting to perform the professional duties of that job.
It's free speech.
It's not up to the board of engineers to arbitrarily decide what isn't isn't the professional duties of a job and then punish people who say things they don't like. It's statutorily defined and this activity was not.
The courts made the entirely wrong decision which is very normal for the US.
This is not true. I can call myself a doctor a lawyer or a cop or anything like that and it is protected speech so long as I am not attempting to perform the professional duties of that job
It actually is true, unless MN has weird rules compared to other states. I'm not a lawyer, but the code here, sec. 326.02 seems pretty clear.
or to use in connection with the person's name, or to otherwise assume, use or advertise any title or description tending to convey the impression that the person is an architect, professional engineer (hereinafter called engineer), land surveyor, landscape architect, professional geoscientist (hereinafter called geoscientist), or certified interior designer, unless such person is qualified by licensure or certification under sections 326.02 to 326.15.
You actually can't call yourself a professional engineer if you're not - theres several lrgal cases where i am that are ongoing due to people calling themselves engineers while being realtors, for example, and trying to use the title to advertise (IE John Doe, P.Eng), which is not allowed.
That's not how we use language. If he took a vacation in another state, called himself a professional engineer, never went home and joined the new states engineering org, he wouldn't be wrong calling himself PEng before he joined the new org.
A retired doctor is still a doctor if somebody needs one on a plane.
When it comes to titles like this that are considered protected, it is actually how they work.
In your example, he isn't allowed to use that title in the new state until he's joined their organization (or they have an agreement with his original state)
As an extreme example for why the timing does matter, If he was licensed properly for 1 year, then let it lapse but continued to do design work as an engineer for 25 years, and then relicensed himself for one last year before retiring, the work he did during that period of being unlicensed isn't covered, and the board of engineers would go after him for that.
For what it's worth, there are specific provisions in the laws to allow retired people to continue using the title P.Eng with a "Retired" tag added onto it.
No he signed an affidavit which said he had not acted as a professional engineer during the time it was lapsed which was true. Because he hadn't done any engineering work.
The entire "representation" was just a title on a single slide of a PowerPoint presentation.
He lost in state court because the MBoE lied about the order of events and decided to "make an example" out of him. And the reason they decided to do that was 100% because they didn't like the content of his political speech.
And that's the point. These organizations will use and abuse their power to punish dissent. Period.
The argument wasn't about a matter of fact, but a matter of law. He didn't argue against their matter of fact per the appeals court decision.
The ALJ heard arguments from both parties on their motions for summary
disposition. Marohn argued to the ALJ that the relevant statutes and regulations prevented
him from referring to himself as a professional engineer only while promoting or providing
engineering services. He also asserted that his conduct was protected by the First
Amendment. The complaint committee’s position was that Marohn had violated applicable
statutes and regulations by representing himself as a professional engineer during the time
his license was expired and by providing false information on his license applications. The
ALJ rejected Marohn’s statutory- and regulatory-interpretation arguments, declined to
consider Marohn’s constitutional arguments, and found that Marohn had violated Minn.
Stat. § 326.02, subds. 1, 3, by representing himself as a professional engineer while
unlicensed and Minn. R. 1805.0200, subps. 1(B), 2, 4(C), based on his statements in his
license applications. The ALJ therefore recommended summary disposition in favor of the
complaint committee.
That's because the appeals process does not allow disputes over matters of fact. The lower court he did dispute the matter of fact. And multiple times offered to pay the fine and accept censure for the error if the factual recorded were amended to comport with what actually happened rather than being recorded in false terms as it was. But the MBoE wanted to defame him in the public record. It was their primary goal. So they refused to do so and kept the record fraudulent.
But the outcome was ALSO wrong as a matter of law.
It was a summary judgement in the lower court because there was no dispute in fact in the lower court. If there was a dispute in fact there would've been a trial. I agree that this was malicious, but I'm a registered nurse so I also have a protected title with similar ramifications to professional engineer and with similar restrictions on license renewal. Essentially if I did not have an active license, it would be illegal by my state law/BON regulations to tell you that I was a registered nurse in this comment. If I instead said "engineer" or "nurse", the courts will generally find that within free speech, like in Jarlstrom. I don't particularly think the courts were wrong here.
I think the word 'conservative' in your post isn't the best one you could have chosen. 'Entrenched' fits better. Bureaucracies will always fight anyone who tries to change anything. That is why bureaucracies are so dangerous and should be defenestrated regularly, so creative minds can inject fresh thinking.
But that's what conservative means. It means adhering to traditional values and hierarchies for their own sake.
These professional organizations that refuse to accept criticism, refuse to change practice in light of evidence of in this case poor workmanship, and refused to let the state of the art grow are the very definition of conservative. Especially when they yield their power to crush critics pushing for equity, progress, or rights.
I'm not sure if there is a more conservative stance than the one where you refuse to accept any criticism and then lash out at the critics.
That isn't at all what 'conservative' means. And 'entrenchment' is not synonymous with tradition. Tradition is a recognition of lessons we learned over a long stretch of time. It is more closely related to 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' than 'entrenched'. We are certainly floating among fine distinctions here, but they are important. I think you would find it incredibly difficult to defend all "organizations" that"refuse to change practice in light of evidence". Like, say, Union organizations. Talk about lashing out!!
It is literally exactly what conservative means. There is no other coherent definition of conservative. Conservative means valuing tradition and the preservation of tradition more highly than other aspects of governance. And there's no difference between your "entrenchment" and my "tradition'. Both mean the same thing -- 'we've always done it this way and so don't want to change'.
If someone's highest values are around and improvement of efficacy and efficiency of their government body, they would identify themselves as a progressive. If the values were protecting individual liberties, they would identify themselves as a liberal. If their values were to promote the fairest and most equitable society, they'd identify as socialist.
People can be many things at once. Most reasonable people are. But the word conservative still has meaning and the meaning is to cleave to tradition and traditional hierarchies. It's what the word means.
I would find it incredibly difficult to defend any organizations that refuse to change practice in light of evidence. I tend to be very progressive-minded and mostly not at all conservative, so I do not think tradition is a very good reason to refuse to change practice.
There is no other coherent definition of conservative.
Of course there is. You just don't want to accept it. And that is fine, but you'll never win hearts or minds using a leftist or Establishment definition of capital-C Conservatives. You are literally making up stuff. "value tradition more highly than other aspects of governance"? Like WHAT?! Like leftists need to abandon long-established and functional definitions, changing the meaning of words to suit whatever the wind blows in today, etc? If you have an issue with a tradition, then lets talk about it instead of just throwing it into the garbage to pursue some globalist or hedonistic perversion of society.
The problem with using words like "individual liberties", "improvement of efficiency", or "fairest and most equitable" is that they are either WILDLY subjective, trojan horses for the most evil political ideologies (anything neo-marxist comes to mind) out there, or the definitions change on the whim of whatever group has the most power today.
But you are right; people can be more than one thing. And luckily for us, we have a few hundred years of Western growth and evolution that have codified a small number of useful traditions that have promoted the development of the most powerful and enlightened nation the planet has ever seen. We continue to grow and learn, hopefully abandoning bad ideas like sexual libertinism and anything related to marxism, and learned from the hard lessons of our past.
Being a Conservative does not mean a refusal to even allow change. It means respect for the hard lessons already learned and an insistence that we have a damn good reason to change those valuable existing traditions. I wish labor unions would learn from their many mistakes over the past hundred-plus years they have been around.
Fair point.
However at this time in both Wisconsin and North Carolina, those entrenched powers are conservative.
Modern society would quickly devolve into chaos without bureaucracy. Just because it's been misused before, does not mean we can do without it. They aren't "fighting" anything, they are rigorously reviewing and modifying plans and specifications of (often massive) public infrastructure.
The entire concept of a Professional Engineer exists due to bureaucracy. Without it, there would be no liability whatsoever for faulty designs in public putting millions (billions?) of people in danger regularly.
Entrenchment is an innately conservative attitude, though, and politically conservative people are a lot more likely to punish you for speaking truth to power.
He was testifying in front of a commission, about a bad designed drain, for a HOA, or similar.
You're correct that the headline is misleading. He's not just posting in some forum. He is testifying as an expert. So there is a little more subtly.
I would like to add. He was not paid. He also was not certifying any designs as safe. You should not need to be a licensed expert to show faults in existing designs.
If your argument is that you're an expert, then you need to have the credentials you claim to have. Anyone can show the faults in a design, but he's explicitly doing novel calculations and analysis - ie not just reviewing someone else's work.
Now that being said, it looks like he never needed a professional license as he fell under an exemption, in which case I feel like they shot themselves in the foot. He's got previous experience doing the same thing he's examining - hydraulics and fluid flow analysis. Regardless of his status as "professional engineer", his previous experience sould qualify him to testify.
You're right. I was just adding more considerations.
The lawyer son should have taken the calculations to a licensed professional engineer to sign off on. In this particular case, I like the ruling in the headline, but I understand the importance of licensing boards for professionals.
Outside of your job though, the company you work for has no obligation to protect you as you aren't acting as an agent of that company on your own time
They can and will fire you for posting things they don't like on social media on your own time, whether you're right or wrong, though. With the justification that you ARE acting as a representative of the company.
If I had a dollar for every time someone got fired for saying anything remotely supportive about Palestine or criticizing cops for being bastards, I'd have enough to buy Boston.
It isn't about being fired for a viewpoint.
Something that would happen a lot on some engineering forums is that someone without any experience would ask if something looked structurally ok and provide a photo. Now, if a PE said it looked ok but something happened to the building and the person was hurt, there may be a liability problem for the PE.
Yeah, but he DOES have the necessary experience to know and he's pointing out that there IS a flaw, so your hypothetical doesn't apply to the actual case here.
They're trying to use his license being temporarily lapsed to keep him from embarrassing them with the knowledge he's had the entire time.
Your forum example is different from this.
The forum poster is soliciting advice, for the purpose of continuing use of the construction. The poster is relying on the engineer for their safety.
If a neighbor looks over the fence, and tells you "looking good Joe!", it won't create any sort of relationship between you, and if it is in fact not good the neighbor isn't liable. You weren't relying on their comment.
The engineer is publishing an open letter about work that somebody else completed, that they were never involved in. They aren't being relied on to approve the continued use of the construction. This is the same as lawyers blogging dissenting opinions on rulings or commenting on legal proceedings in areas they haven't passed the bar.
I can't see that anything like that would get anywhere if there was no compensation or contract entered into for that advice.
The point is that you dont need comp or contract.
This is the same principle that spurs the IANAL tag people slap on to any and all posts that discuss a legal situation. Because if you let someone think you are speaking from an educated authority, you are offering them a level of expert approval or advice. And thus, any misled person can blame you for making them think you were speaking from experience and knowledge.
If you're working for or licensed by a government agency in the USA, it gets more complicated. Your 1st ammendment rights carry more weight since firing you or pulling your license is the state taking action against you.
Obviously they can still punish you if you're bringing "disrepute" to your employer/professiom: bigotry, obscenity, misrepresentation, ethics violations, etc.
Let an AI speak on your behalf and you're free to say whatever you want. Just ask the correct questions and you're done
Let an AI speak on your behalf
No thanks. It's bad enough that Zuckerberg is trying to take my data and spy on me, I'm not gonna make him my spokesperson too.
I wasn't talking about llama AI, I was referring to the fact that Mark Zuckerberg isn't a human.
The NC Board of Examiners and Surveyors claimed that this was punishable by a misdemeanor unless he obtained a professional engineer’s license from the state
Hard to judge, but from what's written in the article, the ban sounds stupid enough to me, an engineer.
This random person from the internet agrees,
That random person from the internet makes an irrelevant aside suggesting your comment is invalid,
and THIS random person from the internet went WEEWEEWEE all the way home
Seems kind of harmfully protectionist; people who know what they're talking about can't share what they know, except when paid and contracted to do so. That's just going to lead to a public that is more ignorant on the topic than they otherwise would be, and realistically it isn't possible for most people to consult an expensive expert every time they have to make a decision that expertise may be relevant to.
So, just to be clear, if I have some experience with something I would better keep quiet about it or prepend any opinion with a huge legal disclaimer, otherwise I may be sued over someone listening to what I say, is that correct?
I may see how that could be reasonable with advices (and that's exactly why those come with "not an advice" disclaimer) but fail to see how that is reasonable in case of opinions or general statements however ridiculous they might be.
The article is pretty short so it's hard to tell, but I know in other cases there can be a significant difference between whether or not you say you're an engineer when you make these claims.
The term engineer is effectively a trademark controlled by a state licensing board. They want to protect the word engineer so it's clear to the public when someone is speaking as a professional licensed engineer vs not. Overall, this is a good thing and a direct response to specific and numerous very bad things that have happened in the past.
However, this has also resulted in some very awkward situations because the word engineer has almost become a genericized trademark in that there are many people who have the word engineer in their job title but do not have or need a professional engineer's license.
Based on the fact the guy won the case, I'm going to assume he wasn't substantially misrepresenting his qualifications. The headline is very sensationalized though and the article is lacking any detail, so I don't know how relevant this little anecdote is but I find it interesting.
As a licensed engineer, you are overselling what it means to be licensed. We do not use it as a trademark. It is more a restriction on using it in making design decisions that could impact public health and safety, and in particular, approving plans for such designs.
Really only civil/structural engineers pursue licensing routinely (although a few other branches that deal with major construction, like HVAC/plumbing branches of mechanical engineering). The vast majority of engineers are not licensed, but so long as you at not practicing in one of those areas restricted by law and regulation, you are fine. And certainly offering opinions and criticism of the design decisions of others is never forbidden. This case was ridiculous
Precisely this. I am an electrical engineer. I was told in school not to stress about the FE exam unless I was a civil engineer. Or I was planning on designing high power equipment. I guess am an electrical engineer technically but these days I also work as a software engineer as well.
I feel that engineer is shoehorned into a lot of job titles nowadays... But I also now work in software engineering. I have a degree in CS as well as degrees and certs in cybersecurity.
Should I need to be licensed by the State to discuss the lack of cybersecurity in systems?
If anything, my studies, and application of project management pay more benefits than my CS certifications and degrees. SMEs really lack the ability to explain to management how it costs more to screw around and half ass some fantastic plan than to, you know, just get minimum viable product going then integrate improvements.
Previously I worked with aircraft where safety is written in blood. Yet in software dev I still have a hard time convincing people to provide a software bill of materials even though it's required. It's still the wild west. Even when DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas termed "killware" only a few took notice.
I guess what I'm saying is that we care more about Netflix uptime than we care about if water treatment plants or infrastructure that could literally kill people if it fails insecure.
The problem is qualified people already built a lot of the systems that are either no longer secure or no longer up to the task post IoT and climate change. How do we admit that qualifications aren't the problem? The problem is lack of continued penetration, stress, fail safe, or regression testing!
In a lot of cases, the use of engineer as a protected title has been given up due to various reasons, with only professional engineer being protected.
And the title of this article is blatantly misrepresenting the case. The issue isn't talking about the math, but getting in that legal gray area where the public could think he is a professional engineer making these claims.
Is it? My tile is "Field service engineer", but I only have on the job training, and an environmental science degree. I know another guy with my title who has no degree. I know it's obviously a different job than a ME or EE, but still officially has engineer in the title.
I have engineer in my title, I work in software, and there kind of is a PE available for software but it's actually just an EE license with maybe half a dozen software questions tacked on. I've never heard of anyone in software actually getting it. It's slightly more common in EE and ME, and I think a lot more common in civil and structural engineering.
I don't know how aggressively state engineering boards actually enforce their hold on the word "engineer", but I still try to be careful. The last thing I want is to get sued for misrepresenting qualifications.
My understanding is "I was a", "former", or "retired" are fine. Same situation as any other licensed profession, like doctor.
Man shoulda just ended every sentence letting folks know he anals then theres no confusion
IANAL
The issue comes down to how "sacred" the word engineer is.
Can I give you medical advice and call myself a doctor if I'm not licensed? Can I call myself a lawyer and give you advice without taking the bar?
Can I give my advice or opinion "as an engineer" if I'm not licensed?
Can I give you medical advice and call myself a doctor if I’m not licensed?
Okay, but there's a difference between trying to run an unlicensed practice and just talking shit on the internet.