TITLE 54

PROFESSIONS, VOCATIONS, AND BUSINESSES

CHAPTER 12

ENGINEERS AND SURVEYORS

54-1202.  Definitions. As used in this chapter, unless the context or subject matter requires otherwise:

(1)  "Authoritative" means certified by a professional land surveyor in accordance with established principles of professional land surveying when used to describe products, processes, applications or data resulting from the practice of professional land surveying.

(2)  "Benchmark" means a material object, natural or artificial, whose elevation is referenced to an adopted datum.

(3)  "Board" means the Idaho board of licensure of professional engineers and professional land surveyors, hereinafter provided by this chapter.

(4)  "Business entity" means a corporation, professional corporation, limited liability company, professional limited liability company, general partnership, limited partnership, limited liability partnership, professional limited liability partnership or any other form of business except a sole proprietorship.

(5)  "Consulting engineer" means a professional engineer whose principal occupation is the independent practice of professional engineering; whose livelihood is obtained by offering engineering services to the public; who is devoid of public, commercial and product affiliation that might tend to infer a conflict of interest; and who is cognizant of his public and legal responsibilities and is capable of discharging them.

(6)  "Engineer" means a person who is qualified to practice engineering by reason of his special knowledge and use of mathematical, physical and engineering sciences, and the principles and methods of engineering analysis and design, acquired by professional education and engineering experience.

(7)  "Engineer intern" means a person who has been duly certified as an engineer intern as provided in this chapter.

(8)  "Land surveyor intern" means a person who has been duly certified as a land surveyor intern by the board as provided in this chapter.

(9)  "Professional boundary land survey" means land surveying services performed by a land surveyor licensed by this chapter and includes establishing, reestablishing, marking, or locating the corners or lines of:

(a)  Property boundaries;

(b)  The public land survey system;

(c)  Rights-of-way;

(d)  Easements;

(e)  Lease areas; or

(f)  Other interests in real property.

(10) "Professional engineer" means a person who has been duly licensed as a professional engineer by the board under this chapter.

(11) "Professional engineering" and "practice of professional engineering" mean any service or creative work offered to or performed for the public for any project physically located in this state, such as consultation, investigation, evaluation, planning, designing, design coordination, teaching upper division engineering design subjects, and responsible charge of observation of construction in connection with any public or private utilities, structures, buildings, machines, equipment, processes, works or projects, or to certify elevation information, wherein the public welfare or the safeguarding of life, health, or property is concerned or involved, when such service requires the application of engineering principles and data. A person shall be construed to practice or offer to practice professional engineering within the meaning and intent of this chapter who practices or offers to practice any of the branches of the profession of engineering for the public for any project physically located in this state or who, by verbal claim, sign, advertisement, letterhead, card, or in any other way, represents himself to be a professional engineer or through the use of some other title implies that he is a professional engineer or that he is licensed under this chapter or holds himself out as able to perform or who does perform for the public for any project physically located in this state any engineering service or work or any other service designated by the practitioner that is the practice of professional engineering.

(12) (a)  "Professional land surveying" and "practice of professional land surveying" mean responsible charge of authoritative land surveying services using sciences such as mathematics, geodesy and photogrammetry and involving:

(i)   The making of geometric measurements and gathering related information pertaining to the physical or legal features of the earth, improvement on the earth, and the space above, on or below the earth; and

(ii)  Providing, utilizing or developing the same into survey products such as graphics, data, maps, plans, reports, descriptions or projects. Professional services include acts of consultation, investigation, testimony, planning, mapping, assembling and interpreting and gathering measurements and information related to any one (1) or more of the following:

1.  Determining by measurement the configuration or contour of the earth’s surface or the position of any fixed objects;

2.  Performing geodetic surveys to determine the size and shape of the earth or the position of any point on the earth;

3.  Locating, relocating, establishing, reestablishing or retracing property lines or boundaries of any tract of land, road, right-of-way, easement or real property lease;

4.  Making any survey for a division or subdivision or a consolidation of any tracts of land;

5.  Locating or laying out of alignments, positions or elevations in the field for the construction of fixed works;

6.  Determining, by the use of principles of surveying, the position for any boundary or nonboundary survey monument or reference point or for establishing or replacing any such monument or reference point;

7.  Certifying elevation information;

8.  Preparing narrative land descriptions; or

9.  Creating, preparing or modifying electronic or other data necessary for the performance of activities in subparagraphs 1. through 8. of this paragraph.

(b)  "Professional land surveying" and "practice of professional land surveying" shall not mean:

(i)   Mapping or geographic information system work that is for nonauthoritative boundaries and nonauthoritative elevations;

(ii)  Construction survey work that is unrelated to establishing vertical and horizontal project control; or

(iii) Construction staking of fixed works or the development and use of electronic models for machine-controlled construction that by design are unrelated to determining boundaries described in paragraph (a)(ii)3. of this subsection.

Any person shall be construed to practice or offer to practice professional land surveying who engages in professional land surveying or who, by verbal claim, sign, advertisement, letterhead, card, or in any other way, represents himself to be a professional land surveyor or who represents himself as able to perform or who does perform any professional land surveying service or work or any other service designated by the practitioner that is professional land surveying.

(13) "Professional land surveyor" means a person who is qualified by reason of his knowledge of the principles of land surveying acquired by education and practical experience to engage in the practice of professional land surveying and who has been duly licensed as a professional land surveyor by the board under this chapter.

(14) "Public" means any person, firm, corporation, partnership, company, government agency, institution or any other entity recognized by law.

(15) "Responsible charge" means the control and direction of engineering work, or the control and direction of land surveying work, requiring initiative, professional skill, independent judgment and professional knowledge of the content of relevant documents during their preparation. Except as allowed under section 54-1223, Idaho Code, reviewing, or reviewing and correcting, documents after they have been prepared by others does not constitute the exercise of responsible charge.

(16) "Retired professional engineer" or "retired professional land surveyor" means a professional licensed under this chapter who chooses to place his license in retired status indicating he is no longer practicing or offering to practice professional engineering or professional land surveying.

(17) "Rules of professional responsibility" means those rules, if any, promulgated by the board, as authorized by the Idaho Code.

(18) "Standard design plan" means a building, structure, equipment or facility that is intended to be constructed or sited at multiple locations and for which some or all of the plans must be prepared by a professional engineer.

(19) "Survey monuments used as control" means any monument marking, referencing, or used as a witness for a line or corner in any professional boundary land survey as defined in subsection (9) of this section.

History:

[54-1202, added 1939, ch. 231, sec. 2, p. 516; am. 1957, ch. 234, sec. 2, p. 547; am. 1961, ch. 258, sec. 1, p. 422; am. 1978, ch. 170, sec. 1, p. 372; am. 1986, ch. 140, sec. 2, p. 377; am. 1996, ch. 357, sec. 2, p. 1187; am. 2000, ch. 289, sec. 1, p. 991; am. 2001, ch. 247, sec. 2, p. 890; am. 2002, ch. 6, sec. 1, p. 6; am. 2007, ch. 219, sec. 1, p. 655; am. 2008, ch. 378, sec. 3, p. 1024; am. 2011, ch. 136, sec. 10, p. 389; am. 2013, ch. 339, sec. 1, p. 886; am. 2014, ch. 235, sec. 1, p. 594; am. 2015, ch. 116, sec. 1, p. 300; am. 2016, ch. 61, sec. 1, p. 195; am. 2020, ch. 127, sec. 1, p. 396; am. 2022, ch. 43, sec. 4, p. 116.]