Traversing The Law: Why Can’t Surveyors Offer Insurance?
I have been doing a lot of thinking here recently about the many problems facing the land surveying profession. If you haven’t noticed, most of my columns over the past several years have focused on...
View ArticleTraversing The Law: Keeping On Until We Get It Right
I recently attended two separate board of licensure meetings in two different states, both of which I’m licensed in.
View ArticleTraversing The Law: Legal Opinion Aside, Surveyors Have The Facts
How do you know when you’ve got it right?
View ArticleTraversing The Law: The Surveyor's Duty in Boundary Law
In my previous column, in the August issue, we went into a detailed discussion on how to know that you have rendered a well-reasoned opinion on the location of the property lines that are the subject...
View ArticleTraversing The Law: This Is Why Surveyors Exist
In my August and October columns, my most recent, we discussed a litmus test for property boundary surveys (i.e., how to know when you have gotten it right) and what the appropriate boundary law...
View ArticleTraversing The Law: Remember, Surveyors, You Have A Job
The retracing surveyor’s societal role in the United States is that of steward of the nation’s property boundaries.
View ArticleTraversing the Law: Regulatory Overreach
I never have been a big proponent of regulation, but I have recognized for a long time that regulation of the surveying profession is probably a good thing.
View ArticleTraversing the Law: Non-Navigable Lakes and Common Law
Perhaps one of the most divergent areas of boundary law has to do with water boundaries and the riparian rights associated with the ownership of waterfront property.
View ArticleTraversing the Law: The FAA's New Rules on Drones
With the FAA’s new rules on Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS), “drones” for short, that will become effective in August of this year (about the time you will be reading this), it’s not too early...
View ArticleTraversing the Law: Surveyor Negligence Lawsuits
Several years ago (more than I want to count), I was putting together a program on liability and limitations on liability and ran across the 1994 Nebraska Supreme Court case of Lawyers Title v. Hoffman...
View ArticleTraversing the Law: Bona Fide Rights, Good-Faith Efforts
The vast majority of boundary surveying work being conducted across the country today is retracement surveying.
View ArticleTraversing the Law: We All Follow the Footsteps
I came to know David Griffin in 1997, when I moved my family from Tampa to Birmingham to join a national engineering and surveying firm that had opened its first office east of the Mississippi just the...
View ArticleTraversing the Law: Unwritten Rights in Land Surveying
I’m not exactly sure where the phrase “unwritten rights” came from or who came up with the idea of unwritten conveyances in relation to surveying, boundaries and deeds, but it seems that it caught on...
View ArticleTraversing the Law: A Review of "The Curt Brown Chronicles"
A few years ago, Michael J. Pallamary compiled many of the lectures and articles written by the late Curtis M. Brown, along with the writings of others who chose to respond in some way to Brown’s...
View ArticleTraversing the Law: Rise in Law Suits Against Surveyors
I am seeing a general rise in litigation against surveyors over the results of their surveys.
View ArticleTraversing the Law: Keg Island Is Example of the Island Rule in Surveying
Present-day Keg Island exists in the Mississippi River where the river flows between the states of Iowa and Illinois. It is over a mile long, maybe a quarter of a mile wide at its widest point,...
View ArticleTraversing the Law: Surveying in the Days of Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln left some substantial footsteps for Illinois surveyors to follow.
View ArticleTraversing the Law: The Unauthorized Practice of Surveying
No doubt many of you have already heard about the recent article that appeared on Bloomberg.com entitled “Land Surveyors Are Paying the Price of Progress” (“Paying the Price").
View ArticleWords Matter in Title Descriptions
Interpreting the words used is the first – and most critical – of many steps that must be taken in the process of performing a retracement survey of property.
View ArticleIs a Tech Firm Violating Rules Against Surveying Without a License?
Back in October of last year, we discussed the disturbing case of Vizaline, a company founded in 2014 that uses public information, draws the deed lines with a software program that plots the bearings...
View ArticleThe Surveyor’s Role in Title Insurance
Other than the deed, the two most important documents relative to the conveyance of real property are the title insurance policy and the survey map of the property.
View ArticleMeasurements Are the Evidence in Retracement Surveys
Finding where a property boundary line has become established on the ground requires gathering the best available evidence that the reasonably prudent surveyor would find, evaluating that evidence, and...
View ArticlePerception of Surveyors Driven by Lack of Awareness
As a whole, the profession has done little to project a positive image.
View ArticleRiparian Boundaries In The Face of Existing Improvements
What are riparian boundary lines? As the name implies, they are boundary lines associated with riparian properties.
View ArticlePrinciples of Riparian Boundary Location
The virgin coastline where theory can be put into practice is quickly evaporating, and conflict and litigation are taking its place.
View ArticleThe Surveying Profession And The Defense Of Property Rights
The core issue for land surveyors, the only reason surveying is a regulated profession, is the protection of private property rights.
View ArticleSurvey Licensure: The NCEES and Restraint On Trade
With the aging population problem we have in the land surveying profession, it seems inconceivable that we would want to restrain the trade of licensed land surveyors.
View ArticleCan A Boundary Survey Be Negligent If You Weren’t Proven Wrong?
What land surveyors can learn from the recent Connecticut Superior Court case of Iron Shields Investment, LLC v. Miller, (2019).
View ArticleAn Open Letter to the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and...
"Surveying property boundaries is not an engineering project," says Lucas, "though too many so-called surveyors treat it as such."
View ArticleThe Land Surveyor and The Carpenter: A Case of Common Sense
When it comes to boundary law and retracement land surveying, Weber v. Kroeger is a case of common sense, says columnist Jeffery N. Lucas, JD, PLS, Esq.
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