Court Opinion

ID: 9854453
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:07:49.650479+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:23:05.267110
License: Public Domain

Mowbray, J.,
dissenting:
The majority has viewed the statutes involved in this controversy and found them constitutionally adequate. I disagree. As the court in Prouty v. Heron, 255 P.2d 755, 760 (Colo. 1953), stated after considering a very similar set of statutes:
“A study of these provisions leads inescapably to the conclusion that upon the whole question of qualifications for registration of engineers, there has been an illegal delegation of legislative authority to the board.”
NRS 625.180, subsection 3, provides:
“3. No applicant for registration as a professional engineer shall be entitled to take the examination unless:
“(a) He is a graduate from an approved course in engineering of 4 years or more in a school or college approved by the board as of satisfactory standing, and has a specific record of an additional 4 years or more of active experience in engineering work of a character satisfactory to the board, and indicating that the applicant is competent to be placed in responsible charge of such work; or
*515“(b) In view of the requirements contained in paragraph (a) of this subsection, he has a specific record of 8 years or more of active experience in engineering work of a character satisfactory to the board, and indicating that the applicant is competent to be placed in responsible charge of such work.” (Emphasis added.)
I do not find, as the majority did, that “the content of the statute is clear and unambiguous.” In fact, it appears to me to give nearly unfettered discretion to the board. What is an “approved course in engineering”? What guides the board in determining whether the applicant’s school or college is satisfactory? What type of engineering work “is of a character satisfactory to the board”? Only the board could know, and only the board need be satisfied in these matters. No external standard is enunciated by the statute. There is virtually no statutory basis upon which an aggrieved applicant could appeal from an adverse decision by the board on one of these matters. The statutory standard is satisfied simply by the action of the board.
A glance at NRS 625.210 demonstrates the same infirmity. The statute provides that the board shall issue a certificate of registration to an applicant “who, in the opinion of the board, has satisfactorily met all the requirements of this chapter.” (Emphasis added.)
Subsection 2 of NRS 625.210 provides:
“2. The certificate shall authorize the practice of professional engineering, followed by the branch or branches for which he is qualified.”
NRS 625.020 provides that the branches of engineering are the recognized branches “as determined by the board.”
Determining both the branches and the qualifications for applicants in the various branches is left completely within the discretion of the board. “Without standards fixed by law, the discretion to declare what the law is, is delegated to the board. This cannot legally be done.” Prouty v. Heron, supra, at 759; Field v. Clark, 143 U.S. 649 (1892).
“The questions as to whom the act will apply, the qualifications for a certificate, and the means employed to demonstrate those qualifications are to be found only in the opinion of the committee. No standards are fixed by the act to guide their uncontrolled discretion. The committee may apply one standard to some applicants and another standard to others. The committee may base its opinion that the applicant has satisfactorily met the requirements of the act at one time upon certain standards as to such requirements, and at other times upon different standards entirely. The opinion of the committee as to *516the requirements of the act would be subject to change with each change in the personnel of the committee.” Krebs v. Thompson, 56 N.E.2d 761, 766 (Ill. 1944).
The unlawful delegation discussed above necessarily permeates the statutes providing for an examination by the board. NRS 625.190 and NRS 625.200. The purpose of the examination is to determine which branch or branches of professional engineering the applicant is qualified to practice. The broad discretion given to the board is particularly apparent in the following sentence in subsection 1(b) of NRS 625.200: “The board may reserve the right to conform the nature and extent of the examination to the particular qualifications of the applicant.” A more flexible standard is hardly imaginable.
If the registration provisions are considered illegal, the penalty provisions of NRS 625.520 must also fall. They are primarily based upon a finding that one has been practicing engineering without being properly registered.
The lower court properly ruled that NRS 625.180 through 625.210 and NRS 625.520 constituted an unlawful delegation of legislative authority in violation of section 1, article 3, of the Nevada Constitution.
The judgment should be affirmed.