(The Center Square) – Tim Sandefur, the vice president for legal affairs at the Goldwater Institute, told The Center Square this week that the Arizona Supreme Court was very interested in the arguments presented by an engineer’s legal team about who qualifies as an engineer.
The Arizona Supreme Court heard arguments on Wednesday for the case of Greg Mills, et al. v. State of Arizona, which has been a legal battle going on since 2019. The Goldwater Institute filed an amicus brief in defense of Mills’ position.
In 2019, the Arizona Board of Technical Registration told Mills he was violating Arizona law by “engaging in ‘engineering practices’ and by advertising their services as ‘engineers’ without first registering” with the state board, according to court records.
ABTR sent him a proposed consent agreement asking him to pay a $6,000 fine, assessed investigation costs and halt his work as an engineer consultant. Mills did not agree to the consent agreement and took legal action.
The Institute for Justice sued ABTR on behalf of Mills, saying the board’s ruling breached Mills’ right promised by the Arizona Constitution to “earn an honest living free from unreasonable, arbitrary, oppressive or monopolistic regulations.”
In 2008, Mills founded Southwest Engineering Concepts LLC, an engineering consulting firm.
According to Sandefur, the hearing lasted around 45 minutes.
During the arguments, he said the state Supreme Court justices did not ask hostile questions to the engineer’s legal team.
“ I counted only nine questions for [Mills’] side and 15 questions for the government side. Which is surprisingly quiet for the Arizona Supreme Court. Usually, they ask a lot more questions than that,” he explained.
According to Sandefur, the “most striking moment” was when Justice Bill Montgomery said he didn’t understand why the state Supreme Court keeps “following what federal courts do when it comes to interpreting the Arizona Constitution.”
He added that Montgomery said the court should be “focusing on what the Arizona Constitution says.”
Mills’ legal defense argued that “the right to earn a living without unreasonable government interference has been a basic right of all people since the time when the Arizona Constitution was written,” the vice president explained.
Sandefur noted Mills’ legal defense also said “ it is inescapable that the right to earn a living free of unreasonable government interference is protected by the Arizona Constitution.”
Mills’ legal defense stated the state’s requirements for engineers are “irrational,” he explained.
In Arizona, Sandefur said if engineers are employed by manufacturers, they don’t need a license to be an engineer. However, if they deal with the general public, an engineer’s license is required.
He noted this law doesn’t make “any sense” because people “can do the work of an engineer without a license, even if [they] deal with the public, as long as [they] don’t call [themselves] an engineer.”
Sandefur said Arizona’s engineer law was written “at a time when people had in mind things like structural engineering” rather than “electronic engineering.”
The justices “seemed very into Mills’ side of the issue,” he stated.
Sandefur added that the justices were “very skeptical” of the government’s arguments.
According to Sandefur, the government cited 1960s cases saying, “economic liberty is not all that important.” He added that these cases were based on federal law, but Montgomery said he was interested in knowing about what people in Arizona thought about when they wrote the Arizona Constitution in 1910.
“At that time, there’s no denying that economic freedom was as important a right as freedom of speech, freedom of religion or private property,” he noted.
