22 Tex. Admin. Code § 137.33 - Sealing Procedures
(a) The purpose of
the engineer's seal is to assure the user of the engineering product that the
work has been performed or directly supervised by the professional engineer
named and to delineate the scope of the engineer's work.
(b) License holders shall only seal work done
by them, performed under their direct supervision as defined in §
131.2 of this title, relating to
Definitions, or shall be standards or general guideline specifications that
they have reviewed and selected. Upon sealing, engineers take full professional
responsibility for that work.
(c)
When a license holder reviews and elects to use standards or general guideline
specifications, those items shall be clearly labeled as such, shall bear the
identity of the publishing entity, and shall be:
(1) individually sealed by the license
holder; or
(2) specified on an
integral design/title/contents sheet that bears the engineer's seal, signature,
and date with a statement authorizing its use.
(d) License holders shall take reasonable
steps to ensure the security of their physical or electronic seals and
electronic signatures. For electronic seals and electronic signatures, the
engineer must have reasonable security measures in place to protect these
files. In the event of loss of a seal or electronic signature, the engineer
will, as soon as possible, but within 30 days of discovery, give written
notification of the facts concerning the loss to board.
(e) Preliminary documents released from a
license holder's control shall identify the purpose of the document, the
engineer(s) of record and the engineer license number(s), and the release date
by placing the following text or similar wording on the title sheet of bound
engineering reports, specifications, details, calculations or estimates, and
each sheet of plans or drawings regardless of size or binding, instead of a
seal: "This document is released for the purpose of (Examples: interim review,
mark-up, drafting) under the authority of (Example: Leslie H. Doe, P.E. 0112)
on (date). It is not to be used for (Examples: construction, bidding, permit)
purposes."
(f) License holders
shall affix their seal and original signature or electronic seal and signature
with the date on the final version of their engineering work before such work
is released from their control.
(1) The
signature and date shall not obscure the engineer's name or license number in
the seal.
(2) Engineering work
required to bear a seal and signature includes the original title sheet of
bound engineering reports, specifications, details, calculations or estimates,
and each original sheet of plans or drawings regardless of size or
binding.
(3) All other engineering
work, including but not limited to research reports, opinions, recommendations,
evaluations, addenda, documents produced for litigation, and engineering
software shall bear the engineer's printed name, date, signature and the
designation "P.E." or other terms as described in §
137.1 of this chapter (relating to
License Holder Designations). A seal may be added on such work if required or
at the engineer's discretion.
(g) Work performed by more than one license
holder shall be sealed in a manner such that all engineering can be clearly
attributed to the responsible license holder or license holders. When sealing
plans or documents on which two or more license holders have worked, the seal
and signature of each license holder shall be placed on the plan or document
with a notation describing the work done under each license holder's
responsible charge.
(h) Licensed
employees of the state, its political subdivisions, or other public entities
are responsible for sealing their original engineering work; however, such
licensed employees engaged in review and evaluation for compliance with
applicable law or regulation of engineering work submitted by others, or in the
preparation of general planning documents, a proposal for decision in a
contested case or any similar position statement resulting from a compliance
review, need not seal the review reports, planning documents, proposals for
decision, or position statements.
(i) A license holder, as a third party, may
alter, complete, correct, revise, or add to the work of another license holder
when engaged to do so by a client, provided:
(1) the first license holder is notified in
writing by the second license holder of the engagement immediately upon
acceptance of the engagement; and
(2) any work altered, completed, corrected,
revised, or added to shall have a seal affixed by the second license holder.
The second license holder then becomes responsible for any alterations,
additions or deletions to the original design including any effect or impact of
those changes on the original license holder's design.
(j) A local authority may require an original
seal and/or signature on reproduced documents.
(k) A plan, specification, plat, or report
issued by a license holder for a project to be constructed or used in this
state must include the license holder's seal placed on the document. A license
holder is not required to use a seal if the project is to be constructed or
used in another state or country.
(l) An engineer may securely transmit his or
her final version of engineering work electronically provided that work bears
the engineer's seal and uses one of the techniques described in §
137.35(a) of
this chapter (relating to Electronic Seals and Electronic Signatures) and must
employ reasonable security measures to make the documents unalterable.
Electronic correspondence of this type may be followed by a hard copy
containing the engineer's printed name, date, signature and the designation
"P.E." or other terms described in §
137.1 of this chapter.
(m) A license holder is not required to use a
seal for a project for which the license holder is not required to hold a
license under an exemption set forth under the Act, Texas Occupation Code
§§1001.051 - 1001.066.
(n) All engineering documents released,
issued, or submitted by a licensee, including preliminary documents, shall
clearly indicate the firm name and registration number of the engineering firm
by which the engineer is employed.
(1) If the
engineer is employed by a local, State, or Federal Government agency, then only
the name of the agency shall be required.
(2) If the engineer is exempt from sealing a
document under subsection (m) of this section, but elects to seal a document,
then only the name of the employer shall be required.
(o) Use of a seal that is not in compliance
with the requirements of §
137.31 of this title (relating to
Seal Specifications) by a license holder is a violation of Board rules and
subject to sanctions.
Notes
State regulations are updated quarterly; we currently have two versions available. Below is a comparison between our most recent version and the prior quarterly release. More comparison features will be added as we have more versions to compare.
No prior version found.