Sequential Opposing-Party Retention in Same Investigative Matter State
Class
b6b28f85
http://proethica.org/ontology/intermediate#SequentialOpposing-PartyRetentioninSameInvestigativeMatterState
Definition
State in which an engineer, having been retained by one party (e.g., a government agency) to investigate a specific incident and thereby gaining access to that party's confidential findings, strategies, and technical data, is subsequently retained by an opposing party (e.g., a contractor filing a claim against the first party) in the same matter — creating an irresolvable conflict of interest rooted in the engineer's prior privileged access and the impossibility of impartial service to both sides of the same dispute.
Properties
Subclass of
Definition
State in which an engineer, having been retained by one party (e.g., a government agency) to investigate a specific incident and thereby gaining access to that party's confidential findings, strategies, and technical data, is subsequently retained by an opposing party (e.g., a contractor filing a claim against the first party) in the same matter — creating an irresolvable conflict of interest rooted in the engineer's prior privileged access and the impossibility of impartial service to both sides of the same dispute.
Scope Note
[proethica-intermediate-extended] State in which an engineer who has been retained by one party in an active legal or quasi-legal proceeding, and has thereby gained cooperative access to that party's confidential information, is subsequently approached to provide services for the opposing party in the same proceeding — creating an absolute ethical prohibition on accepting the cross-side engagement that cannot be resolved by terminating the prior relationship, offering a 'separate and independent' analysis, or relying on the engineer's subjective belief in their own impartiality.
Source Evidence
Source Text
Engineer A is retained by the U.S. government to study the causes of a dam failure
TTL
@prefix rdf: <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#> .
@prefix rdfs: <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .
@prefix owl: <http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#> .
@prefix proethica_intermediate_extended: <http://proethica.org/ontology/intermediate-extended> .
<http://proethica.org/ontology/intermediate#SequentialOpposing-PartyRetentioninSameInvestigativeMatterState> a owl:Class ;
rdfs:label "Sequential Opposing-Party Retention in Same Investigative Matter State" ;
rdfs:comment "State in which an engineer, having been retained by one party (e.g., a government agency) to investigate a specific incident and thereby gaining access to that party's confidential findings, strategies, and technical data, is subsequently retained by an opposing party (e.g., a contractor filing a claim against the first party) in the same matter — creating an irresolvable conflict of interest rooted in the engineer's prior privileged access and the impossibility of impartial service to both sides of the same dispute." ;
rdfs:subClassOf <http://proethica.org/ontology/core#State> .
Metadata
Ontology
Type
Class
Content Hash
b6b28f85e345c647...Last Updated
2026-03-12 16:49
Extraction Provenance
Discovered in Case
170
Discovered In Pass
1
Discovered In Section
facts
First Discovered At
2026-03-01T20:58:37.654770+00:00
First Discovered In Case
170
Generated
2026-03-01T20:58:37.654770+00:00
Was Attributed To
Case 170 Extraction