Did an industrial firm’s employee need a Louisiana engineering license for work done for its customers?

Plain-English summary

Louisiana's engineering board asked how an industrial-operations exemption applied to three kinds of work. The 2013 opinion concluded that an industrial firm's employee could be exempt for qualifying noncivil engineering within the firm's business. In the second scenario, the employee performed the work on the firm's premises, but served customers or sent the resulting product off site. The employee's engineering activity still had to be under a professional engineer's responsible charge.

A person who was not employed by an industrial firm and supplied engineering services to one or more such firms could not claim the employee exemption. The statute also expressly excluded civil engineering and land surveying from this carveout.

Currency note

This opinion was issued in 2013. Subsequent statutory amendments, court decisions, or later AG opinions may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current legal advice. Verify current law before relying on any specific rule, deadline, or remedy mentioned here.

Historical summary

Industrial firm employees

The AG applied the exemption to employees doing qualifying noncivil engineering for the firm. Its customer and off-site-product example involved services performed on the firm's premises, under a professional engineer's responsible charge.

Outside engineering contractors

The opinion denied the exemption to a person who provided engineering services to industrial firms without being employed by one. That person remained subject to licensing and board regulation.

Common questions

Did customer-facing work end an industrial employee's exemption?

The AG said no for the on-premises services described, if the person was the firm's employee and the work fit the statute's course-and-scope and responsible-charge conditions.

Did an outside contractor get the same exemption?

No. The AG said a person not employed by an industrial firm had to obtain a license for the described engineering services.

Did the exemption cover civil engineering or surveying?

No. The statutory text quoted in the opinion excluded those practices from the industrial-employee exemption.

Background and statutory framework

La.Rev.Stat. 37:701 (C) excluded certain industrial-firm employees from Chapter 8's licensing and regulatory provisions. It required engineering activities within the exemption to be under the responsible charge of a professional engineer and preserved regulation of civil engineering and land surveying. The AG applied those conditions to the three fact patterns in the request.

Citations

• La.Rev.Stat. 37:701 (C): industrial-employee exemption and its limits.
• La.Rev.Stat. 37:682: engineering definition referenced in the exemption.

Source

• Landing page: https://www.ag.state.la.us/Opinions
• Original PDF: https://www.ag.state.la.us/Opinion/Download/13-0111

Original opinion text

Best-effort transcription from a scanned PDF. Minor errors may remain — the linked PDF is authoritative.

~hth~ of 'lflouisiana
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
P.O. BOX 94005
BATON ROUGE
70804-9005
JAMES D. "BUDDY" CALDWEll
ATIORNEY GENERAL

OCT 302013
Opinion 13-0111

45 ENGINEERING
Ms. Donna D. Sentell
Executive Director
La.Rev.Stat. 37:701

Louisiana Professional Engineering Pursuant to La.Rev.Stat. 37:701 (C), a person who is an
and Land Surveying Board
employee of a finn engaged in industrial operations and is
performing services within the state of Louisiana in the course
9643 Brookline Avenue, Suite 121
and scope of the business of said finn is exempt from the
Baton Rouge, LA 70809-1433
licensing requirements of Chapter 8 of Title 37 of the Louisiana
Revised Statutes, subject to being under the responsible charge of a professional engineer as provided by La.Rev.Stat. 37:682.

Dear Ms. Sentell:

Your request for an Attorney General's Opinion has been assigned to me for research and reply. On behalf of the Louisiana Professional Engineering and Land Surveying Board ("Board"), you have asked for our office's opinion on a matter related to La.Rev.Stat. 37:701 (C). Specifically, your opinion request presents three (3) different scenarios and asks for our office's opinion as to how La.Rev.Stat. 37:701 (C) applies to those scenarios. In essence, you ask for our opinion as to whether the Board has jurisdiction or authority over the individual described in each of the three (3) scenarios.
The three (3) scenarios are as follows:

(1) An employee of a firm engaged in industrial operations (an "Industrial Firm") provides engineering services (other than civil engineering) only to the Industrial Firm and only on the premises of the Industrial Firm.

(2) An employee of an Industrial Firm provides engineering services (other than civil engineering) only on the premises of the Industrial Firm, but either (a) engineering services are provided to customers of the Industrial Firm or to other persons or (b) the product of engineering services is sent off the premises of the Industrial Firm.

(3) An individual not employed by an Industrial Firm provides engineering services to one or more Industrial Firms.

La.Rev.Stat. 37:701 (C) provides the following:

§ 701. Public and private work; application of provisions

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Opinion 13-0111
Donna D. Sentell
Page -2­

C. This Chapter shall not apply to, affect, interfere with, or in any way regulate employees of firms engaged in industrial operations, including but not limited to producing, processing, manufacturing, transmitting, distributing, or transporting, when performing services within the state of Louisiana in the course and scope of the business of said firms or affiliates thereof. In the event any of the activities set forth in this Subsection shall fall within the definition of practice of engineering as defined in R.S.
37:682, such activities shall be under the responsible charge of a professional engineer. However, this Subsection shall not apply to persons practicing civil engineering or land surveying, who must at all times comply with the provisions of this Chapter.

The Chapter referenced by La.Rev.Stat. 37:701 (C) is Chapter 8 of Title 37 of the Louisiana Revised Statutes. Chapter 8 is entitled "Professional Engineering and Professional Surveying" and generally provides for the licensure and regulation of professional engineers and land surveyors in the State of Louisiana. Our reading of La.Rev.Stat. 37:701 (C) reveals that for certain employees of firms engaged in industrial operations, those employees are exempt from the licensure and regulatory provisions of Chapter 8.

As such, with respect to the first scenario wherein an employee of an Industrial Firm provides engineering services (other than civil engineering) only to the Industrial Firm and only on the premises of the Industrial Firm, it is the opinion of this office that such an employee would not be subject to the licensure and regulatory provisions of Chapter 8, provided such an employee would be under the responsible charge of a professional engineer. 1 In our view, such a person would be considered an employee of a firm "engaged in industrial operations....performing services within the state of Louisiana in the course and scope of the business of said firms or affiliates thereof." Accordingly, pursuant to the plain language of La.Rev.Stat. 37:701 (C), such an employee would not be required to obtain a license, nor would their actions be subject to the authority or jurisdiction of the Board.

With respect to the second scenario, wherein an Industrial Firm employee provides engineering services (other than civil engineering) only on the premises of the Industrial Firm, but either the engineering services are provided to customers of the Industrial Firm or to other persons, or the product of engineering services is sent off the premises of the Industrial Firm, it is also the opinion of this office that such an employee would not

I LAC Title 46:LXI§105(A) provides that the phrase "under the responsible charge of a professional engineer" is defined as (a) the work performed by a professional engineer, dUly licensed under the provisions of the Chapter; or (b) the work reviewed and approved by a professional engineer, duly licensed under the provisions of the Chapter, who is authorized to direct changes to the engineering work, or (c) the work performed in accordance with a system of engineering practices approved by a professional engineer, dUly licensed under the provisions of this Chapter.

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Opinion 13-0111
Donna D. Sentell
Page -3­

be subject to the licensure and regulatory provisions of Chapter 8, provided such an employee would be under the responsible charge of a professional engineer. As before, in our view, such a person would be considered an employee of a firm "engaged in industrial operations ....performing services within the state of Louisiana in the course and scope of the business of said firms or affiliates thereof." Accordingly, pursuant to the plain language of La.Rev.Stat. 37:701 (C), such an employee would not be required to obtain a license, nor would their actions be subject to the authority or jurisdiction of the Board.

With respect to the third scenario, wherein an individual not employed by an Industrial Firm provides engineering services to one or more Industrial Firms, it is the opinion of this office that such a person would be subject to the licensure and regUlatory provisions of Chapter 8 and would be required to obtain a license. In our view, such a person would not be able to take advantage of the exemption provided by La.Rev.Stat. 37:701 (C).

We trust this adequately responds to your request. However, if our office can be of further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Yours very truly,

JAMES D. "BUDDY" CALDWELL
ADORN NERAL

BY:

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