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Martin v. Sizemore8/22/2001
This appeal involves a disciplinary proceeding against a licensed architect. Following a lengthy hearing, the Tennessee Board of Examiners for Architects and Engineers concluded that the architect had engaged in misconduct in the practice of architecture in connection with four projects and suspended his certificate of registration for three years. The architect appealed the Board's decision to the Chancery Court for Davidson County. The trial court reversed the Board's decision after determining that the decision was not supported by substantial and material evidence. On this appeal, the Board asserts that its suspension of the architect's certificate of registration has adequate evidentiary support. The architect renews his argument that the Board's proceedings violated his procedural due process rights because the attorney who prosecuted the State's case against him also served as the Board's lawyer in other matters. Except for a portion of the charges involving one project, we concur with the trial court's conclusion that the Board's decision lacked evidentiary support because the State failed to present expert testimony regarding the applicable standard of care. We have also determined that the architect has not carried his burden of demonstrating that the Board was actually biased against him because the lawyer who prosecuted the State's case also provided other, unrelated legal services to the Board. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court's judgment as modified herein and remand the case to the Board for further proceedings. Tenn. R. App. P. 3 Appeal as of Right;
Judgment of the Chancery Court Affirmed
William C. Koch, Jr., J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which Henry F. Todd, P.J., M.S., and William B. Cain, J., joined.
OPINION
I.
William C. Martin received his certificate to practice architecture in Tennessee in 1969. He has been working as a sole practitioner in the Knoxville area ever since. In May 1992, the State filed a notice of charges with the Tennessee Board of Examiners for Architects and Engineers ("Board"), alleging that Mr. Martin had engaged in unprofessional conduct on four projects between late 1986 and early 1989. The State asserted that Mr. Martin's certificate should be suspended or revoked because (1) he was not competent to prepare the plans for a three-story motel and commercial building in Pigeon Forge and that the "deficiencies" in his structural plans "contributed" to the collapse of the structure in April 1987, (2) he was not competent to prepare the structural and electrical drawings for a seven-story motel project in Gatlinburg, (3) he permitted a client to construct and occupy an old grocery store converted into an automotive body shop when he knew that the Knox County Fire Prevention Bureau had issued a stop-work order on the project, and (4) he failed to submit acceptable electrical design drawings for a proposed motel in Townsend to the State Fire Marshal in a timely manner and that he permitted his client to substantially complete the project even though the plans contained numerous deficiencies.
In July 1993, Mr. Martin responded to the notice of charges by asserting that he had complied with the applicable standards of professional conduct for each of these projects. He also interposed numerous defenses to the notice of charges, including assertions that the rules of professional conduct were vague, that the State was engaging in selective enforcement, and that the use of lawyers furnished by the Department of Commerce and Insurance ("Department") to prosecute him amounted to a constitutionally impermissible combination of the prosecutorial and adjudicatory functions. Less than one mont
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