DP5

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

DP5

Should Engineer A file a formal ethics complaint against Firm B for alleged supplanting violations, given that he simultaneously holds no active contracts with the former clients at issue, is himself engaging in disparagement of Firm B's qualifications, and is in an active competitive rivalry with the engineers he is complaining against?

Engineer A filed a formal ethics complaint against the four departing engineers alleging supplanting violations, while simultaneously engaging in the symmetrically equivalent misconduct of disparaging Firm B's qualifications to former clients. The Board ultimately rejected the supplanting allegation and found Engineer A himself in violation for disparagement. The question is whether Engineer A's ethics complaint was itself ethically compromised by his competitive self-interest, and whether the formal ethics process was being instrumentalized as a competitive weapon rather than invoked from disinterested professional concern.

File the ethics complaint against Firm B but affirmatively disclose to the receiving ethics body the competitive relationship between Engineer A and Firm B, the absence of active contracts with the former clients at issue, and the factual basis for the supplanting allegation — allowing the ethics body to assess the complaint's context and the complainant's potential self-interest appropriately.

Decline to file the ethics complaint while simultaneously engaging in disparagement of Firm B's qualifications, recognizing that the concurrent misconduct undermines the integrity of the complaint and that the ethics process should not be invoked by a party who is at the same time committing a symmetrically equivalent violation.

File an ethics complaint limited to Firm B's actual disparagement of Engineer A's qualifications — a violation the Board ultimately confirmed — rather than the supplanting allegation, which rests on a misreading of the supplanting prohibition given the absence of active contracts, thereby grounding the complaint in a factually and legally accurate basis rather than a competitively motivated misapplication of the rule.

Engineer A Incumbent Firm Principal