DP5

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

DP5

Should the Board mechanically apply consulting-practice precedents (BER Cases 71-2 and 78-5) to the county surveyor employment context, or conduct an independent analysis recognizing that statutory public employment's non-delegable oversight duties and fixed-position constraints produce different ethical outcomes than consulting practice?

The Board of Ethical Review must decide whether to apply its prior consulting-practice precedents (BER Cases 71-2 and 78-5) — which permitted engineers to coordinate interdisciplinary work through specialist retention under Section II.2.c — to the county surveyor employment context, or whether to conduct an independent analysis recognizing that the structural differences between consulting practice and statutory public employment produce different ethical outcomes under the same Code language.

The Board applies BER Cases 71-2 and 78-5 directly to the county surveyor situation, concluding that because consulting engineers may ethically coordinate interdisciplinary work through specialist retention, Engineer A may similarly discharge the county surveyor's oversight duties by relying on qualified surveyors on staff, without conducting an independent analysis of how statutory employment's structural constraints differ from consulting practice.

The Board recognizes that BER Cases 71-2 and 78-5 were decided in the consulting-practice context — where dynamic workforce flexibility, subconsultant engagement, and joint ventures are available — and conducts an independent analysis of the Code provisions as applied to statutory public employment, concluding that the non-delegable oversight duty and fixed-position constraints of the county surveyor role produce a different ethical outcome than the consulting-practice precedents would suggest.

The Board not only conducts an independent employment-context analysis but explicitly articulates the structural asymmetry between consulting-practice flexibility and statutory public employment constraints — documenting that the Section II.2.c specialist retention provision operates as a competence-gap remedy in consulting contexts but cannot serve the same function in a statutory oversight role where the oversight duty is personally non-delegable — thereby establishing clear precedent for future cases at the consulting/employment boundary.

Board of Ethical Review (Ethics Adjudicator)