Every licensed professional engineer in Texas answers to the ethics rules in Title 22, Part 6, Chapter 137 of the Texas Administrative Code, enforced by the Texas Board of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors (TBPELS). The TBPE ethics rules cover public safety, competence, honesty, conflicts of interest, client confidentiality, and the duty to report misconduct. Violations can cost up to $5,000 per day per occurrence and carry penalties ranging from reprimand to permanent license revocation.1Texas Board of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors. Engineering For A Better Texas
Public Safety Comes First
Rule §137.55 sets the hierarchy plainly: the health, safety, property, and welfare of the public is the engineer’s paramount responsibility. “The public” is defined broadly to include clients, businesses, government entities, and anyone whose normal life might involve interacting with the engineer’s work.2eLaws. Texas Administrative Code 137.55 – Engineers Shall Protect the Public A civil engineer designing a drainage system owes a duty not just to the property owner who paid the invoice but to every neighbor downstream.
The rule prohibits engineering work that is reasonably likely to endanger life, health, safety, property, or welfare when measured against generally accepted standards. Incompetence, gross negligence, and criminal conduct all count as sanctionable misconduct.2eLaws. Texas Administrative Code 137.55 – Engineers Shall Protect the Public When a client’s instructions conflict with public safety, the public duty wins.
Work Only Within Your Competence
Rule §137.59 restricts engineers to assignments that match their actual education and experience. You cannot sign off on work you are not qualified to evaluate.3Legal Information Institute. Texas Administrative Code 137.59 – Engineers Actions Shall Be Competent A mechanical engineer with no structural background has no business sealing a load-bearing design.
A project that spans multiple disciplines is still fair game, as long as the phases outside your specialty are handled by other qualified licensed professionals, consultants, or employees.3Legal Information Institute. Texas Administrative Code 137.59 – Engineers Actions Shall Be Competent Collaboration is fine. Overreach is not.
Competence also governs expert testimony. An engineer offering opinions in a deposition, court, or administrative hearing that contradict generally accepted engineering principles must fully disclose the basis and reasoning. Quantitative claims need adequate modeling or analysis behind them.3Legal Information Institute. Texas Administrative Code 137.59 – Engineers Actions Shall Be Competent
Objectivity and Truthfulness
Rule §137.57 requires that all oral and written statements made in professional practice be objective and truthful. Statements that are fraudulent, deceitful, or misleading in any way violate the rule.4Legal Information Institute. Texas Administrative Code 137.57 – Engineers Shall Be Objective and Truthful This covers reports, calculations, certifications, testimony, and routine project communications. Omitting data to steer a conclusion counts as misleading just as much as fabricating data.
The same rule obligates engineers to speak up. If an engineering decision or judgment is overruled by a project manager, owner, or anyone else, the engineer must make all affected parties aware of the concern and the potential consequences.4Legal Information Institute. Texas Administrative Code 137.57 – Engineers Shall Be Objective and Truthful Quietly letting a bad decision stand because someone senior insisted on it is itself a violation.
Conflicts of Interest and Dual Compensation
Two separate provisions govern financial conflicts, and they work differently.
Rule §137.57(c) requires engineers to disclose any potential conflict to a current or prospective client or employer as soon as they discover it. A potential conflict exists whenever there is a reasonable probability that the engineer’s financial, business, property, or personal interests could affect their professional judgment on the client’s behalf.4Legal Information Institute. Texas Administrative Code 137.57 – Engineers Shall Be Objective and Truthful You can still accept the work, but only if every party is fully informed in writing and the client or employer confirms the situation in writing. Verbal acknowledgment does not satisfy the rule.
Rule §137.63 goes further and flatly prohibits accepting compensation from more than one party for services on the same project or assignment.5Legal Information Institute. Texas Administrative Code 137.63 – Engineers Responsibility to the Profession There is no written-consent escape hatch here. The board’s suggested sanction for dual compensation is a two-year suspension and a $4,000 fine.6Texas Register. 22 TAC 139.35(b) – Classification of Violations and Suggested Sanctions
Client Confidentiality
Rule §137.61 protects private information belonging to clients and employers. An engineer may reveal confidential information in only three situations: with the client or employer’s fully informed consent, when a court order or law requires disclosure, or when keeping the information secret would threaten public health, safety, or welfare.7Texas Board of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors. Texas Engineering and Land Surveying Practice Acts and Rules Concerning Practice and Licensure
The rule also prohibits using confidential information to benefit a third party or to disadvantage the client, and it requires engineers to take reasonable steps to keep employees and associates from leaking private information.7Texas Board of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors. Texas Engineering and Land Surveying Practice Acts and Rules Concerning Practice and Licensure The public-safety exception creates a built-in tension: when staying quiet about a client’s information could put people at risk, the public-safety duty overrides confidentiality.
Duty to Report and Cooperate
Two provisions impose reporting duties.
Under §137.55(c), when an engineer identifies a risk to public health, safety, property, or welfare, they must first notify the parties involved. If the risk is not resolved, the engineer must report fraud, gross negligence, incompetence, misconduct, or illegal conduct to the board or to the appropriate civil or criminal authorities.2eLaws. Texas Administrative Code 137.55 – Engineers Shall Protect the Public An engineer who spots a dangerous design flaw on a colleague’s project and says nothing is in violation. The board’s published sanction for failing to report another engineer’s violations is a reprimand and a $2,500 fine.6Texas Register. 22 TAC 139.35(b) – Classification of Violations and Suggested Sanctions
Rule §137.51(b) adds a cooperation duty. License holders who know of any alleged violation of the Engineering Practice Act or board rules must cooperate with the board by providing requested information or assistance. If the board contacts you in writing during an investigation, you have 21 days to respond, or whatever deadline the correspondence specifies. Failure to respond is itself a separate offense of misconduct.8Legal Information Institute. Texas Administrative Code 137.51 – General Practice
Firm Registration Pulls Individual Engineers In
Ethics liability does not stop with the individual. Under Texas Occupations Code §1001.405, a business entity cannot practice engineering or use terms like “engineer,” “engineering,” or “engineered” in its name, advertising, or communications unless it is registered with the board. Every engineering service the entity performs must be either personally performed by an engineer or directly supervised by an engineer who is a regular full-time employee of that entity.9Texas Public Law. Texas Occupations Code 1001.405 – Practice by Business Entity Registration Hiring a part-time PE just to seal drawings does not satisfy the rule.
Under §137.51(d), an engineer who participates in any arrangement that enables a non-compliant firm to offer engineering services is personally subject to disciplinary action.8Legal Information Institute. Texas Administrative Code 137.51 – General Practice Lending your license to an unregistered firm puts your license at risk.
The Mandatory Ethics Hour
Maintaining a Texas PE license requires 15 professional development hours (PDH) per renewal cycle, with at least one to two of those hours dedicated to professional ethics, the roles and responsibilities of professional engineering, or a review of the Engineering Practice Act and board rules. Up to five hours can come from self-directed study, and up to 14 hours can be carried forward into the next renewal period. The mandatory ethics component ensures license holders revisit these obligations regularly rather than treating them as a one-time exam topic.
Penalties and How a Complaint Moves
Anyone can file a complaint with TBPELS. Investigative staff review it for jurisdiction, completeness, and evidence of a violation. If the evidence warrants further action, the respondent receives a letter identifying the complaint, the potential violations, the specific laws or rules at issue, and a request for a written rebuttal, typically due within three weeks.10Texas Board of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors. The Complaint/Investigative Process
When staff recommends sanctions, the executive director sets an administrative penalty and offers a Consent Order. If the respondent signs, the full board approves it at its next quarterly meeting. If the respondent refuses, the case proceeds to an informal conference before a board committee or to a formal hearing at the State Office of Administrative Hearings.10Texas Board of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors. The Complaint/Investigative Process
Grounds for disciplinary action under the Engineering Practice Act include violating any board rule, fraud or deceit in obtaining a license, gross negligence or misconduct in practice, and retaliation against someone who served as a reference for a license applicant.11State of Texas. Texas Occupations Code 1001.452 – Grounds for Disciplinary Action
Suggested Sanctions by Violation
The board publishes a sanction guide pairing specific rule violations with recommended penalties. These are starting points. The statutory ceiling is $5,000 per day per occurrence.1Texas Board of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors. Engineering For A Better Texas Representative entries from the sanction table:
- Fraudulent or deceitful statements under §137.57(a): two-year suspension and $4,000 fine.
- Misleading statements under §137.57(a): one-year suspension and $1,500 fine.
- Conflict of interest under §137.57(c)(d): two-year suspension and $4,000 fine.
- Dual compensation on the same project under §137.63(c)(5): two-year suspension and $4,000 fine.
- Failure to report another engineer’s violations under §137.55(c): reprimand and $2,500 fine.
- Failure to conduct business honestly and ethically under §137.63(a): two-year suspension and $4,000 fine.
Beyond fines and suspensions, the board can issue reprimands, probated suspensions, and permanent license revocations. Sanctions are public and show up in the board’s records.
Discipline in Another State Can Follow You Home
Ethics obligations do not stop at the Texas border. Under §137.65, a Texas-licensed engineer practicing in another state must comply with that state’s engineering laws. If another state finds that the engineer practiced illegally, or disciplines them for conduct that would also violate Texas rules, TBPELS can open its own disciplinary proceeding based on a certified copy of the other state’s order.7Texas Board of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors. Texas Engineering and Land Surveying Practice Acts and Rules Concerning Practice and Licensure A suspension in Louisiana can become a suspension in Texas without an independent investigation.