BCN 3281: Construction Methods

Alex Visaggio

BCN 3281: Construction Methods
September 28, 2017

Legal Case

Surveying is the process of finding unknown distances by using elevation, direction and linear/angular measurements to then translate a design onto a physical area to serve as the basis for construction. The person who conducts the surveying is the surveyor. Surveyors attend school for 4 years or can train as an apprentice for 8 years before getting certified as a professional surveyor. Surveyors work with personnel from both the field and the office. In the field a surveyor conducts layout, measurements and stacking of a land while documenting the process with field notes, calculations and pictures. Surveyors use specialized tools and equipment such as robotic
v. S.E. DOWNEY REGISTERED LAND SURVEYOR, P.A. et al. was a case in Maine that Downey was negligent in his work and thus resulted in the damages the Graves sustained from the negligence. The background of the case is the Graves owned land in Bar Harbor, Maine that was bordered on the East and North sides by the Acadia National Park. The Graves decided re-parcel the land into three separate plots and build a home on the northern most one. The Graves’s contractor hired Stephen Downey, a registered land surveyor in Maine and president and sole shareholder of S.E. Downey a register corporation conducting business in land surveying. His son Patrick Downey who was not a certified land surveyor a the time, is an employee and did most of the work, under the supervision of his father Stephen. The contractor began construction of the house on the northern most lot, right on the boarder of Acadia National Park. The construction on the lot included redoing existing road, installing a septic system, drilling a well, and providing power. During the construction an official from the national park contacted the Graves to inform them that their house was north of their property line and was on the park’s land, in which they have the authority to prohibit the construction. Negotiations failed with Park Officials and the Graves had to move their house south of the disputed property line at the cost of
An investigation was conducted and an expert witness testified on behalf of the Graves stating that “he was baffled at S.E. Downey's conclusion that there was a gap between the southerly boundary of the Graves’s' land and the northerly boundary of MDI High School when every deed in the chain of title stated they were contiguous.” Downey’’s survey had deficiencies on the southern border. The property line was set north of the MDI High School property line creating a space between the two. From reviewing the deed for the Graves property; the property line is touching the MDI High School property line and there should be no gap. Downey by not properly establishing the correct monument to conduct the survey resulted in the property lines being marked further north thus resulting in the Graves to build their home on the park’s