Curd v. Kentucky State Board of Licensure for Professional Engineers & Land Surveyors

433 S.W.3d 291, 2014 WL 2773653, 2014 Ky. LEXIS 226
CourtKentucky Supreme Court
DecidedJune 19, 2014
DocketNos. 2012-SC-000165-DG, 2012-SC-000169-DG
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 433 S.W.3d 291 (Curd v. Kentucky State Board of Licensure for Professional Engineers & Land Surveyors) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Kentucky Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Curd v. Kentucky State Board of Licensure for Professional Engineers & Land Surveyors, 433 S.W.3d 291, 2014 WL 2773653, 2014 Ky. LEXIS 226 (Ky. 2014).

Opinion

Opinion of the Court by

Chief Justice MINTON.

Joseph B. Curd, Jr., a Kentucky-licensed land surveyor, testified as a trial expert on behalf of the defendants in a quiet-title action in the Wayne Circuit Court. In the course of his testimony, Curd — operating solely off of an historic deed’s calls and distances — opined in support of the defense theory that the disputed boundary extended across a highway traversing the disputed area. Unconvinced by Curd’s testimony, the trial court — sitting without a jury — ultimately ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. After the case was over, the Kentucky State Board of Licensure for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors conducted disciplin[295]*295ary proceedings against Curd for his allegedly misleading and inaccurate- trial testimony. The Board found Curd’s performance as an expert witness violated professional standards and suspended Curd’s surveyor’s license for six months.

Curd appealed the Board’s decision to the Franklin Circuit Court; and the Board, following an adverse decision by that court, appealed to the Court of Appeals. The decision of the Court of Appeals was not entirely favorable to either party, so both moved for discretionary review in this Court. We granted discretionary review to analyze whether the Board can properly police a licensee’s expert testimony and whether the statutes and regulations used by the Board to sanction Curd were unconstitutionally vague as applied to him.

We affirm, in part, and reverse, in part, the opinion of the Court of Appeals. In so doing, we agree -with the Court of Appeals that Curd is not immune from possible disciplinary action by the Board and that a number of the statutes and regulations enforced by the Board against Curd are impermissibly vague as applied to him. We further agree with the opinion of the Court of Appeals that the issue of substantial evidence before the Board — paramount in any review of agency action — was not addressed by the circuit court. But we disagree with the Court of Appeals that remanding this appeal to the circuit court for substantial-evidence review is warrant ed. The parties have presented the substantial-evidence issue at every appellate level. And we see no reason to remand for substantial-evidence review. Upon a complete review of the record, we hold today that the Board’s decision to discipline Curd is supported by substantial evidence. In light of a number of the statutes and regulations relied on by the Board in its initial decision ruled unconstitutional as applied to Curd, we remand the case to the Board for reconsideration of Curd’s sanction.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND.

The Denneys and the Southwoods owned adjacent property along the Eads-ville Highway in Wayne County, Kentucky. The Southwoods held a deed to a 110-acre tract contiguous to two tracts owned by the Denneys. The Southwoods maintained that their 110-acre tract encompassed the Matthews tract,1 which the Denneys claimed belonged to them, and extended south across the Highway to include about 12 acres of the Denneys’ property. The Denneys brought an action in circuit court to establish boundary lines and quiet title against the Southwoods.2

After meeting with other land surveyors, the Southwoods eventually hired Curd as their expert for the case; and he testified for them in a discovery deposition and at trial. Throughout his testimony, Curd maintained that the calls and descriptions appearing in the Southwoods’ deed included the Matthews tract and extended their property line across-the highway. Curd created a deed plot3 as a visual aid to [296]*296illustrate further how the Southwoods’ tract extended over the highway and encompassed the adjoining Matthews tract. During his testimony, Curd acknowledged the surveying principle that, generally speaking, a deed’s monumentation controls over its calls and distances. But, while admitting the Southwoods’ deed actually called for the Matthews tract’s boundary line and the highway as boundary monuments, Curd emphasized the work he performed on the Southwoods’ behalf was only preliminary and did not involve identifying the monumentation that an actual field survey would require. The Board acknowledges the Southwoods’ deed can be interpreted to cross the highway but only if monumentation is ignored.

The Denneys’ trial expert was James West, also a Kentucky-licensed land surveyor. At trial, Curd challenged the adequacy of West’s deed research. Regarding his own research, West stated the following during his .deposition:

Q. What work did you do in the deed room prior to surveying this property?
A. I didn’t do any. [The Denneys’ attorney] furnished me with the research on it. I did look up adjoining deeds and so forth, but I didn’t do any title work on this deed. Curd thus criticized West at trial, pointing to his failure to perform deed research as a practice that fell below the surveying profession’s minimum requirements.

Curd testified at trial that he was an investigator employed by the Board. This assertion was inaccurate. Curd had been an investigator for the Board, but the Board failed to renew Curd’s employment contract three months before he testified at trial. Curd asserts that the Board had failed to renew his contract in a timely manner on earlier occasions and he had no indication this particular delay was any different. The Board admits that it had been late in renewing Curd’s contract in the past and that it had not asked Curd to return his credentials.

After the trial, the Southwoods initiated disciplinary action against West before the Board. The Board investigated West’s conduct and found only minor violations not worthy of substantial discipline. While investigating West’s conduct, the Board also reviewed Curd’s conduct and found sufficient issues to bring, on its own motion, a disciplinary action against Curd.

As provided by its disciplinary process, the Board held a three-day adversarial hearing in which both the Board and Curd called witnesses. The Hearing Officer, issuing sixty-four findings of fact and fifty-seven conclusions of law, concluded that Curd’s testimony in the circuit court case was dishonest and misleading and that Curd ignored or suppressed material facts. Accordingly, the Hearing Officer found Curd violated Kentucky Revised Statutes (KRS) 322.180(2) and (12), as well as 201 Kentucky Administrative Regulations (KAR) 18:142(2), (3), and (9). The Board accepted the Hearing Officer’s finding and suspended Curd’s license for six months.

Curd appealed the Board’s decision to the Franklin Circuit Court, which rejected his argument that the Board was without jurisdiction to discipline him for his expert testimony but found the statutes supporting the Board’s sanctioning of Curd to be unconstitutionally vague as applied to him. Specifically, the circuit court noted the Board should not engage in policing expert testimony presented in judicial proceedings absent extraordinary circumstances. In light of its constitutional ruling, however, the circuit court considered moot all other issues Curd presented on' appeal. [297]*297Both the Board and Curd appealed the Franklin Circuit Court judgment to the Court of Appeals.

Before the Court of Appeals, the Board took issue with the circuit court’s determination of unconstitutionality.

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433 S.W.3d 291, 2014 WL 2773653, 2014 Ky. LEXIS 226, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/curd-v-kentucky-state-board-of-licensure-for-professional-engineers-land-ky-2014.