DP2

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

DP2

Should Engineer A proactively volunteer the known adverse traffic, noise, and air pollution impacts to the City Planning Board during testimony, or permissibly remain silent on those impacts while relying on the multi-witness hearing structure and other independent engineers to supply that information?

Engineer A must decide whether to proactively volunteer the known adverse traffic, noise, and air pollution impacts of the waterfront development during testimony, even though no Board member has yet asked about them. This decision sits at the ethical fault line identified in CausalLink_Omit Known Negative Impacts: omission is conditionally permissible under the multi-witness institutional reliance and relevance-pertinence principles, but becomes a violation if it crosses into affirmative concealment or artfully misleading presentation.

Affirmatively disclose to the City Planning Board the anticipated increases in traffic congestion, noise pollution, and air pollution during the presentation, treating these as 'relevant and pertinent information' under the engineer's objective professional judgment, thereby satisfying the most demanding interpretation of the NSPE Code's public welfare and objectivity obligations independent of whether other witnesses appear.

Decline to volunteer traffic, noise, and air pollution impacts during the presentation, exercising professional judgment that these are either not 'relevant and pertinent' to Engineer A's specific scope of testimony or are adequately addressed by the institutional completeness mechanism of the multi-witness hearing — provided the silence does not constitute affirmative concealment and Engineer A answers all direct questions honestly.

Before the hearing, conduct a good-faith, client-interest-neutral professional assessment of whether the traffic, noise, and air pollution impacts meet the 'relevant and pertinent' threshold for Engineer A's testimony, and volunteer only those impacts that the objective assessment identifies as relevant — neither suppressing clearly material information nor volunteering information genuinely outside the scope of the engineer's role.

Engineer A — Licensed Professional Engineer Testifying Before City Planning Board