DP2

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

DP2

After Engineer X has actually departed Firm Y, must Engineer Z treat continued distribution of brochures and firm resumes listing Engineer X as a current employee as an actionable misrepresentation requiring immediate corrective action, or may Engineer Z apply a relaxed correction timeline given Engineer X's non-key-employee status and the marginal significance of hydrology to the firm's overall practice?

After Engineer X has actually departed Firm Y and joined a competing firm, Engineer Z must decide what corrective obligations apply to the firm's existing stock of printed brochures and firm resumes that continue to list Engineer X as a current employee. The Board's permissive ruling during the notice period implicitly expires at the moment of actual departure, and the question is whether Engineer Z must treat the post-departure period as categorically different — requiring expeditious correction through errata sheets, reprints, or withdrawal — or whether the non-key-employee status of Engineer X and the non-significance of hydrology to the firm's overall work continue to reduce the urgency and ethical weight of the correction obligation.

Treat Engineer X's actual departure date as the mandatory trigger for immediate deployment of errata sheets, cover letters, or strike-outs to all prospective clients who received the outdated brochure, and initiate reprinting of updated materials, on the grounds that post-departure distribution of materials listing a departed employee cannot be characterized as an administrative lag regardless of that employee's prominence within the firm.

Treat Engineer X's non-key-employee status and the non-significance of hydrology to the firm's overall practice as justifying a relaxed correction timeline — updating materials at the next scheduled reprint cycle rather than deploying immediate errata sheets — on the grounds that the materiality threshold for misrepresentation is lower for non-prominent personnel and the absence of intent to deceive remains a relevant mitigating factor post-departure.

Deploy immediate corrections — errata sheets or verbal disclosures — only in contexts where the firm resume or brochure is submitted in response to a hydrology-specific client solicitation, while allowing the general promotional brochure to remain in circulation until the next scheduled reprint, on the grounds that materiality is context-dependent and the correction obligation is most acute where client reliance on Engineer X's specific expertise is direct and contemporaneous.

Engineer Z