Eng-Tips is the largest engineering community on the Internet

Intelligent Work Forums for Engineering Professionals

Register Log in

Udate on "traffic light engineer". 9

Status
Not open for further replies.
Good to hear the case was settled properly. The Oregon board was over stepping so far it was ridiculous.
 
Just to be clear; the update is regarding ITE's acceptance of Jarlstrom's work. The court case is old news.
But if you wish to get into old news, the board enforced Oregon law as written. Do you expect some volunteer engineers to overrule the legislature? The judge actually re-wrote the law to make it acceptable, although the Oregon Revised Statutes have not changed. See page 23.
 
As the judge made clear, the ORS is overly broad and infringes on free speech. The ORS essentially means basically, ANYONE doing ANYTHING requiring "engineering education" to create a "design." is in violation of the law, including engineering teachers and students. If the Board were seriously enforcing the law "as written," they should be prosecuting every engineering student in Oregon when they turn in homework. The fact that they don't clearly means the law is overly broad and stupidly written. Even if you designed something for your backyard, and required any sort of calculation, you'd violate the law "as written."


[URL unfurl="true" said:
https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/ors/ors672.html[/URL]]
672.005 Additional definitions. As used in ORS 672.002 to 672.325, unless the context requires otherwise:
(1) “Practice of engineering” or “practice of professional engineering” means any of the following when done for others:
(a) Performing a service or creating an original work requiring engineering education, training and experience.
(b) In connection with utilities, structures, buildings, machines, equipment, processes, works or projects, whether private or public, applying special knowledge of the mathematical, physical and engineering sciences to services or original works such as:
(A) Consultation;
(B) Investigation;
(C) Evaluation;
(D) Planning;
(E) Design; and
(F) Services during construction, manufacture or fabrication for the purpose of ensuring compliance with specifications and design.
Click to expand...

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
(1) “Practice of engineering” or “practice of professional engineering” means any of the following when done for others:
Click to expand...

The bold part should limit when the work can be called professional engineering. He wasn't asked or commissioned to do the studies.

Besides, the board having a fairly broad ability to enforce when necessary and doing rather silly borderline vindictive enforcement are two different things.
 
Ah, yes, but his wife is an "other," isn't she? She is, so technically he overstepped if you really want to read it word for word - which is ridiculous. Perhaps adding "for compensation" would be a worthwhile addition.


 
I'm torn on this. On the one hand, it's such a stretch to take it that way that I want to agree with LionelHutz. The board needs teeth so they can use them when the time is right and people need to use some sense interpreting this. But, on the other hand, lawyers exist (to the detriment of society, more often than not it seems). And the board apparently doesn't have the sense to know when it's inappropriate to use said teeth.
 
It hasn't been a stretch for the Oregon board, by all accounts. They apparently relished gnashing and biting with their teeth, even though a reasonable person might have reasonably concluded that this was a one-off and could have been left alone.


TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
ORS 672.002 (Definitions for ORS 672.002 to 672.325) to 672.325 (Civil penalties) do not apply to the following:

(6) The performance of engineering work by a person, or by full-time employees of the person, provided:

(a) The work is in connection with or incidental to the operations of the person; and

(b) The engineering work is not offered directly to the public.
Click to expand...

I would offer that he was clearly operating under the industrial exemption as the work was for his own purposes and not offered to the public.

Beyond that, if its acceptable to title oneself an engineer when working in their niche and illegal to use the title outside of that niche, then OR needs to start pursuing PEs offering services outside their licensure ala SEs offering HVAC and electrical routing. They should also review state and college employees working/teaching outside their niche, and while they're at it should also review to ensure those employees actually have the required four years of experience outside academia.
 
But he, in fact, "offered directly to the public," his engineering work when he sought/got interviews with local media. That specific clause essentially says that any unlicensed engineering work cannot be "offered directly to the public" without violating the law, so any publication of technical articles would be in violation and enforcement of the law would be an infringement of the authors' first amendment rights.

Obviously, Oregon doesn't seem particularly concerned about this gross violation of the Constitution.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
I don't see it that way. So long as he made clear his qualifications (or lack thereof) and published it as an opinion, I don't see a violation. That would apply even if he said "I am an engineer" so long as he added "but my area of expertise is not in traffic planning or control" or something similar.

If he attempted to publish a white paper giving direction on the design of traffic signals and led people to believe that he was, in fact, an engineer and subject matter expert, then I'd say the Board would be within their rights to punish him for it.
 
I don't believe you're reading that correctly IR, otherwise the majority of technical papers, resumes, and product advertisements in OR are illegal. He did not offer to work for the public, he simply publicized his work like many other non-PEs do annually. I'd wager his regular business is advertised in a similarly public manner, showing his engineering work and capabilities publicly but not soliciting the public for engineering services.

Regardless, violating Constitutional/basic human rights is massively unethical and any board member voting to do so should be required to surrender their positions and licenses.
 
"The performance of engineering work by a person" --> he performed an analysis

The engineering work is not offered directly to the public. --> he publicized (offered to the public) the analysis (engineering work)

He violated the statute as written; this is, as you said, why the board pro(per)secuted him. Nowhere does it require that a solicitation occur or that monies exchange hands.

I don't see anything that would exempt engineering articles or books.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
I think the difference was he didn't publish his analysis in some obscure (to the board) journal or magazine; he went to publicly accessible media to show his analysis and repeatedly claimed to be an "engineer," specifically, in my opinion to thumb his nose at the board. I think the main reason he was persecuted was because publicly flouted the statute, as opposed to quietly flouting it in a trade or engineering magazine. He basically decided, somewhere, sometime, to pick this fight with the board.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
What a thankless job. The volunteer board gets spanked by the judge, the attorney general, free speech rags, and eng-tips for their reasonable interpretation of the statute they're trying to uphold. Any licensing board members among the eng-tips folks here throwing stones? The board made adjustments and has moved on.
 
Plenty of volunteers work hard to do their job with proper "intent" in mind... and some just love having the power of being able to tell others "no". I'll let everyone decide on their own which group of volunteers are being described here.

Dan - Owner
Footwell%20Animation%20Tiny.gif
 
View it how you will, but ultimately they chose to interpret and enforce a statute in an unethical manner. This is no different than someone in the military or civilian law enforcement choosing to obey an unjust/illegal order, except in this case the board got away with it. How the politicos wrote the statute is irrelevant as ultimately two decisions need to be made by the enforcement agency - how do I interpret? and do I enforce?
 
As a P.E. in Oregon, I can tell you that the OSBEELS board and employees DO NOT interpret the statutes. They follow them as written. I have learned this through several interactions with them. The court found that the statutes in question were written with too wide a scope and needed to be amended. Thanks for the link, stevenal - I hadn't seen that yet.

xnuke
"Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life." Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.
 
Not realizing which words in which combinations can be regulated and which are free speech prior to a judge's ruling is unethical? Luckily there's a process for dealing with these ethically challenged engineers: report them to the board.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

racookpe1978
  • Locked
  • Question
Power Plant Piping Mods. What separates "New Construction" & "Repair & Upgrad
Replies
4
Views
5
RVAmeche
RVAmeche
zclarson82
  • Locked
  • Question
Death of Principal Engineer 10
Replies
9
Views
16
glass99
glass99
Jim6e
  • Locked
  • Question
Who constitutes a client of a professional engineer? 13
3 4 5
Replies
98
Views
99
LionelHutz
LionelHutz
XR250
  • Locked
  • Question
Foundation Engineering Without going on site 3
2
Replies
29
Views
30
gte447f
gte447f
NOLAscience
  • Question
Firm Recruiting Engineers to Train Generative AI Models 4
2
Replies
29
Views
40
IRstuff
IRstuff
Back
Top