North Carolina retiree Wayne Nutt has a calculator, and he knows how to use it. During a 45-year career as a chemical engineer, he solved complex problems for DuPont and other companies.
Now he shares his knowledge for free. He writes letters and speaks up when he finds errors in public documents, and he volunteers his expertise when people ask for help. “I like to be able to give it,” said Nutt, who lives in Ogden, just north of Wilmington, North Carolina.
Unfortunately, state regulators do not appreciate the random acts of math. The North Carolina Board of Examiners for Engineers and Surveyors came after Nutt in spring 2021 when he volunteered as an expert witness in a negligence case against a local home builder.
Nutt did not misrepresent himself or his qualifications during his deposition. He just stepped forward as a concerned citizen, but the state launched a misdemeanor investigation against him anyway for the unauthorized use of numbers. Technically, the prohibition is on speech, not arithmetic, but the effect is the same.
The math police told Nutt to keep his answers to himself. If he offers testimony that requires “engineering knowledge,” the state will bust him like a math outlaw because he lacks a professional engineering license — something he never needed during his career. Engineers at manufacturing firms such as DuPont have an exemption to the requirement.
Essentially, doing the work without a license is legal in North Carolina. Talking about it is a crime.
Nutt could end the gag order by earning the credential, but the government demand is not reasonable in two ways. First, the licensing process is cumbersome. Nutt, who already has an engineering degree from the University of Iowa, would have to pass at least one state exam, pay fees, and complete continuing education classes.
More importantly, Nutt is 77 years old and not looking for a job. He does not want a license to practice engineering because he does not want to practice engineering. He just wants to talk about it.
Rather than accept the violation of his rights, Nutt partnered with the Institute for Justice and filed a federal lawsuit on June 10. The complaint is the second free speech case against the engineering board in less than three months. The Institute for Justice filed a previous case on March 22 after state regulators told Goldsboro drone operator Michael Jones that he could not take aerial photographs and annotate them without a surveying license.
Both cases serve as reminders that the First Amendment covers more than just political speech. Experts and professionals also have the right to express themselves, which the Supreme Court affirmed in NIFLA v. Becerra. The 2018 ruling bans the government from claiming “unfettered power to reduce a group’s First Amendment rights by simply imposing a licensing requirement.”
Despite the clear message, North Carolina regulators continue to give themselves unfettered power by using a definition of engineering so broad that it could stretch to include almost any activity. The board purports to control “any service or creative work, the adequate performance of which requires engineering education, training, and experience, in the application of special knowledge of the mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences to such services or creative work as consultation, investigation, evaluation, planning, and design of engineering works and systems.”
The jumble of words is so circular that it uses the term “engineering” three times to define the “practice of engineering.” Even do-it-yourselfers could be in trouble if they got caught in the infinite loop, which happened to one man in Oregon, where regulators use similarly broad language.
State regulators accused Swedish immigrant Mats Jarlstrom of practicing engineering without a license and fined him $500 when he publicly suggested that yellow traffic lights should last for slightly longer to accommodate cars making right turns. A 2018 Institute for Justice court victory ended the absurdity in Oregon, but people remain vulnerable in North Carolina.
Nutt’s case shows what can go wrong. He was not designing or building anything when regulators silenced him. He was offering his opinions on someone else’s work, which falls in the domain of speech.
Regulators have control over bridges, roads, and buildings. Thoughts, words, and images belong to the people of North Carolina.
Joe Gay is an attorney. Daryl James is a writer at the Institute for Justice in Arlington, Virginia.
