The person subject to the complaint prepared stormwater calculations and submitted it as evidence in a legal proceeding.

The letter that person received from the board is linked in the article.

It states the person is charged and gives them the opportunity for a written response.

Civil engineering typically requires a PE.

Engineering generally refers to design and building, of which analysis is a single part. So it's not immediately apparent that Nutt was practicing engineering at all.

It's more accurate to say that the kind of projects civil engineers work on generally end up requiring a PE, as a condition of actually being built. Small time civil engineering in your own backyard does not require a PE - eg improving drainage, setting up a windmill, building a chicken coop, etc.

Prohibiting people from applying mathematical formulas in court arguments because doing so is "engineering" is a dangerous idea. If you're fighting a speeding ticket, is it "engineering" to independently calculate your speed by measuring the time between two points?

Ultimately if the stormwater calculations are complex enough that the court is unable to follow them itself, then it is up to the court to disregard his testimony because he is not a professional engineer with a trustable opinion. That would be a perfectly reasonable outcome here.

But what the state board is attempting to do is to prohibit anybody from examining technicalities without the right license. That's the path to closed society madness.

Nutt provided expert testimony as an engineer. That is legally defined as "practicing engineering".

https://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/NC_Engineering_ema...

That link is just the North Carolina license board's position statement. They're the defendants in this case, for attempting to claim such overbroad authority.

Nutt's position is that their claim conflicts with his first amendment right to free speech, specifically his right to state his opinion on technical matters.

I agree with Nutt. NC is effectively attempting to criminalize my ability to represent myself in court and many other areas of society (enumerated in a sibling comment) - due to having the "regulated knowledge" of engineering without the corresponding license, I would be unable to state my opinion. Instead I would have to hire a PE that concurs with me simply to express my own opinion.

I very much doubt the federal courts are going to agree that free speech applies to expert testimony.

And if you attempt to provide expert testimony in your own defense, the court will likely laugh at you. You will have to hire an outside expert to provide expert testimony.

It's hard to imagine a place where free speech is more important than in Court testimony.

Suppressing testimony by punishing people for speaking honestly (nor merely disregarding their testimony) undermines the very foundation of thr legal system.

> It's hard to imagine a place where free speech is more important than in Court testimony.

This is obviously wrong. Lying is broadly protected by free speech but firmly illegal, not just inadmissible, in court testimony. Courts also have the ability to compel testimony under criminal penalty, while free speech includes the right to say nothing or dissemble. Evidentiary standards place further requirements even on the source of what you are saying, regardless of its truth.

Or as the 6th Circuit put it, "The courtroom is a nonpublic forum, where the First Amendment rights of everyone (attorneys included) are at their constitutional nadir."

He didn't lie though, he said in his testimony that he wasn't a licenced engineer.

And that's why he's been accused of practicing engineering without a license and not perjury, and why this is a reply to a specific statement about the first amendment in courtrooms and not a top-level comment about This One Oppressed Guy.

Even if he's 100% correct, that doesn't mean he has a first amendment right to testify!

The question of whether something counts as expert testimony - judgement calls that can be relied on as impartial facts - is up to the court itself. That is not in dispute here.

"The yellow light timing is below table X of the traffic code, and therefore my ticket for running the red light is invalid because I was not given the chance to stop in time."

That's an argument that an individual can straightforwardly make and a judge can choose to accept or not by following the same reasoning. It involves engineering analysis, yet it is low stakes enough to make hiring a Professional Engineer prohibitive.

Under the North Carolina board's position, a person who makes this argument is committing a crime. That effectively creates a privileged class of people whose decisions (or oversights) cannot be questioned even when they're blatantly wrong - in this example, the traffic engineers responsible for the intersection.

Here the practice of engineering is specifically set out in statute, regulation, and legal precedent. As are the duties of the board, its process, penalties for violations, and appeals processes.

The board is investigating a case based on its authority. The authority exists via democratic process originating with the legislative process and state constitution.

The regulation of engineering is within the scope of the states per the US Constitution and established legal precedent.

You didn't address the substantive part of my comment. Straightforwardly under the regime you've described, individuals are not only prevented from, but can be actively punished for:

1. Using mathematical formulas to demonstrate facts, such as pointing out that speed can be calculated by distance over time.

2. Pointing out how a red light camera fails to meet required implementation details.

3. Pointing out how a bridge is unsafe.

4. Pointing out that an expert witness is glaringly wrong.

5. Comment on the details of a public proposal.

Nutt's case is analogous to 3. Nutt did not design the stormwater system. He is critiquing it for a poor design. In an open society, that is everyone's right. The court can choose to find his reasoning lacking or simply non-understandable, but he shouldn't then be getting attacked for having spoken his opinion.

Errors and disagreements are common in engineering, as in any art, and so any honest engineer should be worried about criminalizing debate. Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.

Licensure boards can be notoriously aggressive, which is why this case is getting attention. Furthermore, state-chartered entities are commonly over scoped because they're really just extensions of the state executive, with only court cases to push back on them. Your argument from status quo is uncompelling.

He claims that this all supported by precedent (and the US Constitution itself!), without citing any of the precedent.

Nothing is being built from this. It is testimony on the quality of something else. People other than engineers get to have opinions on the validity of something. It is up to the opposition to discredit him.

He has not practiced engineering in any way whatsoever.