DP12

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

DP12

Should Engineer F treat the adjudicated contractor license revocation as triggering a categorical, non-waivable disclosure obligation on the employment application — foreclosing any prudential weighing — or apply the same discretionary balancing that BER 97-11 permitted Engineer A to perform regarding an unresolved allegation?

The calibration of Engineer F's disclosure obligation against the Allegation-Adjudication Distinction drawn from BER Case 97-11, which determines whether the formal adjudication of the contractor license revocation — as opposed to a mere pending allegation — creates a categorically stronger and non-waivable disclosure duty that forecloses the prudential weighing Engineer A was permitted to perform, and whether the safety-critical domain of fire sprinkler contracting and the integrity-implicating nature of the underlying conduct further heighten that obligation.

Disclose the contractor license revocation without prudential weighing, recognizing that the formal adjudication eliminates the epistemic uncertainty that justified Engineer A's more cautious approach in BER 97-11 and that the safety-critical domain amplifies materiality beyond any threshold that narrow question wording could override.

Weigh the disclosure decision prudentially — as Engineer A was permitted to do in BER 97-11 — by considering the reputational harm of disclosing a non-PE license matter, the narrow wording of the application question, and the absence of a PE license suspension, and conclude that non-disclosure is defensible given these mitigating factors.

Disclose the revocation only if the hiring firm's engineering practice directly involves fire protection or contractor-adjacent work, treating domain-relevance as a necessary condition for the disclosure obligation to activate and maintaining non-disclosure if the firm's practice is in an unrelated engineering field.

Engineer F