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Oregon Unconstitutionally Fined a Man $500 for Saying 'I am an Engineer,' Federal Judge Rules (vice.com)
A federal district court has ruled that the state of Oregon illegally infringed on a man's First Amendment rights for fining him $500 because he wrote "I am an engineer" in a 2014 email to the state's Engineering Board. The court ruled that the provision in the law he broke is unconstitutional, which opens the door for people in the state to legally call themselves "engineers." Motherboard reports: This dystopian saga dates back to 2013, when Mats Jarlstrom's wife, while driving, was caught by a red light camera near their home in Beaverton, Oregon. Rather than pay the red light camera fine, Jarlstrom, an electrical engineer, spent months researching the specifics of yellow light timing and red light cameras, and learned that his wife had likely been ticketed for running a yellow light. Jarlstrom began sharing his findings on his personal website, at conferences, and even got featured on 60 Minutes. He also wrote several emails to the Oregon Board of Engineers explaining what he had found. In the email, he noted that he was an "engineer."
Rather than looking into whether traffic light timing should be changed, however, the board sent Jarlstrom a warning -- and then a $500 fine for the crime of "practicing engineering without being registered." Jarlstrom had violated one of Oregon's "Title Laws," which states that "no persons may ... hold themselves out as an 'engineer'" unless they are an "individual who is registered in this state and holds a valid certificate to practice engineering in this state." Jarlstrom has a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and spent his career working in electronics, but wasn't board certified. He sued the state's engineering board and, last week, a U.S. District Court judge for the District of Oregon ruled that the state's law is unconstitutional. The judge wrote: "The statutes prohibit truthfully describing oneself as an 'engineer,' in any context. This restriction clearly controls and suppresses protected speech, and enforcement of the statute against protected speech is not a hypothetical threat. The term 'engineer,' standing alone, is neither actually nor inherently misleading. Courts have long recognized that the term 'engineer' has a generic meaning separate from 'professional engineer' and that the term has enjoyed 'widespread usage in job titles in our society to describe positions which require no professional training.'"
"The judge ordered that the word 'engineer' be struck from Oregon's law, which is 'substantially overbroad in violation of the First Amendment' and specifically noted that Jarlstrom may describe himself publicly and privately using the word 'engineer' and that he may continue to talk about traffic light timing publicly," reports Motherboard.
Rather than looking into whether traffic light timing should be changed, however, the board sent Jarlstrom a warning -- and then a $500 fine for the crime of "practicing engineering without being registered." Jarlstrom had violated one of Oregon's "Title Laws," which states that "no persons may ... hold themselves out as an 'engineer'" unless they are an "individual who is registered in this state and holds a valid certificate to practice engineering in this state." Jarlstrom has a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and spent his career working in electronics, but wasn't board certified. He sued the state's engineering board and, last week, a U.S. District Court judge for the District of Oregon ruled that the state's law is unconstitutional. The judge wrote: "The statutes prohibit truthfully describing oneself as an 'engineer,' in any context. This restriction clearly controls and suppresses protected speech, and enforcement of the statute against protected speech is not a hypothetical threat. The term 'engineer,' standing alone, is neither actually nor inherently misleading. Courts have long recognized that the term 'engineer' has a generic meaning separate from 'professional engineer' and that the term has enjoyed 'widespread usage in job titles in our society to describe positions which require no professional training.'"
"The judge ordered that the word 'engineer' be struck from Oregon's law, which is 'substantially overbroad in violation of the First Amendment' and specifically noted that Jarlstrom may describe himself publicly and privately using the word 'engineer' and that he may continue to talk about traffic light timing publicly," reports Motherboard.
I thought the court would hold that the state may prohibit using the title "engineer" commercially, to solicit business, but could not prohibit calling oneself an engineer in other contexts. In fact, the court ruled much more broadly. The ruling is that title laws in general are questionable, and must be narrowly tailored. (Though "professional engineer" and 'registered professional engineer" are still regulated).
Quoting here the part of the ruling that I found most interesting and surprising:
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The Title laws restrict constitutionally protected speech. While the Court need not reach the question of whether the Title laws are invalid in every application, the Title laws prohibit a substantial amount of protected speech. The record demonstrates that the threat to free expression is not merely hypothetical. Therefore, "from the text of [the law] and from actual fact," the Court holds that the Title laws are substantially overbroad in violation of the First
Amendment. Virginia v. Hicks, 539 U.S. 113, 122 (2003)
---
https://ij.org/wp-content/uplo...
Then the State of Oregon is free to rewrite its statute to reflect the sort of engineering that requires a PE in order to get one's stamp with regard to the use of the term, which would probably be limited to the senior person in a firm that designs complicated structures or systems and signs off on the soundness of those structures or systems. They shouldn't have the right to restrict criticism of those structures or systems, or of less complicated systems not requiring a PE's stamp to build and implement in the first place.
The man did not overstep any authority by criticizing a system that malfunctions, and he described himself as an engineer in the course of actually documenting/supporting his work. It wasn't like his criticism was limited to, "This system is broken. I'm an engineer. You need to take my word for it."
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
so $500 refund - 25K legal fees = big loss for him
He'll probably get legal fees back plus punitive damages.
They were involved in attempting to deprive him of first amendment free speech rights under color of statute, A violation of 42 U.S. Code 1983 - Civil action for deprivation of rights -
Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress
Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act of 1976 provides attorney's fees for:
"any action or proceeding to enforce a provision of sections 1981, 1981a, 1982, 1983, 1985, and 1986 of this title, title IX of Public Law 92–318 [20 U.S.C. 1681 et seq.], the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 [42 U.S.C. 2000bb et seq.], the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 [42 U.S.C. 2000cc et seq.], title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 [42 U.S.C. 2000d et seq.], or section 12361 of title 34"
In fact technically "liberal" comes from french and in terms of politics and philosophy refers to someone who believes in equal rights and the right to self determination, essentially liberty and egalitarianism.
The opposite on this axis is an authoritarian.
A separate axis is where you find conservative vs progressive. Essentially a conservative is risk-averse and fearful in dedication to maintaining things as they are while a progressive is open to taking risks in exchange for at minimum an equivalent benefit.
Oddly the vast apparent majority of those who refer to themselves as "conservatives" tend to want to make radical changes and reforms.
Something that keeps getting left out of the coverage of this case, esp to tech communities, is that they guy kept referring to himself as an engineer in correspondences with the board of engineers and its staff, after repeatedly being asked not to (and at one point even agreeing, but then starting up again).... so he was REALLY blurring the lines between simply calling himself an engineer an 'practicing' in that he was using his title to sound authoritative to people who professionally interact with licensed people.
But he was in fact a practicing engineer, which is why TFS refers to a "truthful" description being criminalized. He wasn't a "professional engineer", but I've yet to find any reference to him calling himself that.
As far as "sounding" authoritative, he *is* in fact an authority in as far as electrical systems go, versus being a layman.
Full disclosure: engineer, not PE, but EU dipl. eng., which is protected there but not in the US.
It is not uncommon for certification boards to require that requirements be met (experience, testing, education) before people can lay claim to a title.
In Oregon's case they used too generic of a label, engineer when they should have specified "State certified engineer" or "Certified Traffic Engineer".
This will get pretty muddy when it moves to a higher court and all of the independent certification groups approach the court with amicus briefs supporting their ability to certify trained people to perform certain jobs.
Yes... nice job following along with the class. The mask wearing thugs disrupting civil society with violence and hysteria are fascists and the people wearing red hats that you fascists hate so much are just good ol fashioned Americans.
If you believe that I have some tropical beach front property in North Dakota to sell you. There is ample evidence on YouTube alone of Antifa initiating violence with anyone they disagree with, think they disagree with, or who just happens to be walking by.
They are thugs, they are domestic terrorists and need to be arrested on sight.