The framing of the title is a bit disingenuous. He is not “talking” about engineering to a bunch of college students. He is providing expert opinion in a court case. This is a whole different deal and I think there is nuance here.
Honestly, I don’t like the manipulation with the title and how they are framing the whole thing. Makes me cautious about emitting an opinion.
In the article it says he declared that he wasn’t a licensed engineer. At most, you could argue that his expert testimony is not valid, saying that it is illegal it is a whole different deal. It smells like corruption of the NC government to me.
"I'm not a medical doctor, but here is a bunch of medical advice that should be used to prosecute this defendant." It doesn't sound that great either way. Either you have the expertise to make such judgments, or you don't, and shouldn't try to pass off legal opinions you can't legally make with a disclaimer, as if that absolves everything. I can fully understand someone getting irritated at this and trying to go one step further.
Did you read the bit where 80% of employed engineers in North Carolina don't have an engineering license, but have an industry exemption from state law? He was legally an engineer for decades up until his retirement.
So imagine if 80% of doctors didn't have some sort of license allowing them to speak about their practice.
> 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.”
> By some estimates, 80% of engineers nationwide work legally without a license. By the Board’s interpretation, most engineers in North Carolina could not legally comment publicly on engineering.
His exemption makes his field of practice much more limited than a fully licensed engineer and didn't seem to cover making legal advice in court. Court experts should indeed be held to high standards. At this point, being called an engineer is just semantics. In many other locales, someone not licensed is not even allowed to call themselves that, regardless of their degrees.
> In many other locales, someone not licensed is not even allowed to call themselves that, regardless of their degrees
But as the grandparent comment you responded to explained, he isn't calling himself that, because he declared that he wasn't a licensed engineer. Shouldn't the court be able to decide whether to accept him as an expert witness?
"(4) Engaging in engineering or land surveying as an employee or assistant under the responsible charge of a professional engineer or professional land surveyor." is, I think, the only one to apply.
> "I'm not a medical doctor, but here is a bunch of medical advice that should be used to prosecute this defendant." It doesn't sound that great either way.
Yeah, it sounds like something the opposition's lawyer should try to prevent being accepted as expert witness testimony. I'm not a lawyer, but I have seen "My Cousin Vinny" so I understand that there are procedures for doing this.
On the other hand, maybe the opposition's lawyer wasn't able to prevent the witness from being accepted as an expert because the witness actually was an expert and ought to have been accepted as an expert, in spite of not being a doctor. Maybe she was a professor of pharmacology or something. Thus she could justifiably claim to say with expertise "X drug would be very likely to kill a patient of type T and should not be prescribed to them." But this sounds a lot like medical advice (I mean, a person with condition T who heard the testimony might decide not to take drug X), even though it isn't. It's expert witness testimony.
We try to prevent people from giving medical advice without a license because medical advice tends to be given in private to people who tend to trust it implictly and will thus suffer the consequences of it being dangerously wrong. When medical advice is given in public in front of a hostile enemy lawyer, this is less of a concern.
The court did, and the Board accepts that. (See the link from the details of the case.) The board is pointing out that it is a Class 2 misdemeanor to practice engineering without a license (and outside the "industrial exemption").
I started to worry when I saw that he had given a legal deposition. But "Wayne testified truthfully that he was not (and never had been) a licensed engineer". So according to the article, there was no misrepresentation to the court.
Engineering licensure is generally opt-in for activities that require it, and you obviously don't need to be a licensed engineer to testify plainly in court (contrast with signing off on plans for a building, for which you do), so he should be in the clear.
Of course getting this close to what the state board considers their turf (Professional Engineer expert witnesses, whose testimony carries more weight) explains why they're trying to stomp on him - similar to that engineer in Oregon who got legally harassed for a bunch of years for doing math about red light cameras.
Honestly, I don’t like the manipulation with the title and how they are framing the whole thing. Makes me cautious about emitting an opinion.