DP3

DecisionPoint
http://proethica.org/ontology/cases#DecisionPoint

DP3

Should the Board treat XYZ Consultants' failure to ask about prior PE exam attempts as a factor that partially absorbs Engineer Intern A's individual disclosure obligation — producing a shared-responsibility finding — or should the engineer's affirmative honesty duty under the NSPE Code be assessed independently of the employer's investigative diligence, with the employer's due diligence failure treated only as a secondary mitigating factor relevant to remedy rather than to the existence of the ethical obligation?

The structural tension between the Employer Hiring Due Diligence Obligation — which places responsibility on XYZ Consultants to inquire about prior exam attempts when imposing a licensure condition — and the Pre-Employment Qualification Disclosure Obligation — which places an affirmative honesty burden on Engineer Intern A independent of whether the question was asked — and whether these principles should be treated as equally weighted competing obligations that share and thereby dilute the ethical burden, or as obligations operating at different levels of the ethical architecture with the candidate's honesty duty as primary.

Treat the employer's failure to ask about prior exam attempts as a partial exculpating factor that, combined with the candidate's privacy interest in exam history, supports a shared-responsibility finding in which the omission is imprudent but not an independent ethics violation

Assess the engineer's pre-employment disclosure obligation independently of whether the employer asked, treating the materiality of the omitted fact — two prior failures directly bearing on a 90-day licensure condition — as sufficient to trigger an affirmative disclosure duty under III.3.a, with the employer's due diligence failure treated only as a secondary factor relevant to remedy and relational responsibility

Apply a graduated materiality standard that treats the employer's failure to ask as fully exculpating when the omitted information is personal or biographical in character, but as insufficient to excuse omission when the undisclosed fact is the direct metric by which the employer's stated hiring condition is measured — finding the omission in this case to cross the materiality threshold and constitute an ethics violation despite the employer's due diligence failure

Engineering Firm Hiring Authority (XYZ Consultants)