In my work with people in the legal profession, I find many have very limited or no experience with property complications and their resolutions (think “boundary disputes”, “adverse possession” versus “prescriptive rights”, and “riparian rights” for starters). Sometimes they find out the hard way that they should have consulted a surveyor earlier in the process. I only know about the lawyers who come to me, so I don’t know how many others with similarly limited knowledge are out there. But I’m sure readers of this publication have had encounters that parallel mine.
The following five points are so basic that we surveyors take them for granted, but they are worth pointing out to remind ourselves that our job includes educating our clients even down to the most basic points so that attorneys can proceed with a clearer understanding of how to frame their cases. These are all from the same boundary dispute case on which I have been serving as an expert (and educator of lawyers) for the last 12 months.
Not every graphic depiction created by a surveyor is a “survey”
The attorney who hired me thought that anything signed by a surveyor indicated that ground measurements had been made and then analyzed by that surveyor. The word “Map” in the title block of a 1962 document started this conversation. He asked me what the basis for the map was. “There aren’t any notes on this document, so I can’t answer that,” I said. So was the water boundary the “map” shows accurate at the time this map was drawn or not, he asked “I can’t answer that either,” I said. I couldn’t even tell if the image we were looking at was a survey or some kind of tracing or a compilation from different sources. What about this newer image created by the opposition’s surveyor; do these lines overlaid onto this aerial photo represent a survey with measurements made on the ground? “No, the notes on this image clearly state it was created by overlay of two different datasets, and my research into them indicates neither was verified by any ground measurements.”
Corollary: Not every survey locates property boundaries
Different types of surveys are meant to answer different questions for our clients. A topographic survey may be meant to give an approximate idea of how much dirt would have to be moved around to create a detention basin. A bathymetric survey could be intended to answer whether certain sized vessels can access the channel without going aground. They aren’t about ownership or possession.
“Accuracy” and “precision” are not interchangeable terms
I get so tired of that image of a circular target with shot holes clustered in the middle or somewhere closer to the rim. My favorite explanatory image is from a cartoon drawn by a student from University of California at Fresno, printed many years ago in the surveying newsletter that used to be circulated when Jim Crossfield ran the program. There are four panels, all identical except for the time shown on the wall clock. In each panel, a man heads for the doorway to exit a room, but misses and walks smack into the door jamb, with arms upflung from the impact. The clock next to the doorway shows one hour later in successive panels. The caption beneath the cartoon reads: “Poor Ernie, always precise, never accurate.” Our attorney modified his brief’s language upon understanding the difference (and laughing).
CADD doesn’t necessarily produce anything more reliable than GIS
The opposing side argued their CADD image was more accurate than our GIS image using the same data. But no matter which tool is utilized, the quality of the outcome depends on the quality of the data layers. That quality is not necessarily related to the scale or age of the data. Both CADD and GIS can help us visualize geographical relationships, and they each have their own capabilities. When it comes to overlaying one dataset over another, a rough hand drawn sketch overlaid onto a tax map isn’t any more credible simply because the process was accomplished using one tool rather than the other.
Corollary: CADD doesn’t yield a better result when a surveyor is using the same crummy data as someone else
The opposition insisted their CADD overlaid images were more credible than our GIS versions because they were prepared by a licensed surveyor. But it doesn’t always matter if someone manipulating the identical poor data has “LS” after their name. Someone with more experience might discover the unsuitability of the data set more quickly and be able to explain why it is unsuitable more clearly. That more experienced person could be unlicensed as a surveyor -perhaps a highly qualified and reliable survey technician. Our technical person working on this case pointed out all the limitations of the data. Their surveyor did not.