NSPE Board of Ethical Review Case No. 00-5
An illustration of how the Board has addressed this dilemma can be found in BER Case No. 00-5
Engineer A should have taken immediate steps to go to his supervisor to press for strict enforcement of the five-ton limit
the circumstances dictated a 'full-bore' campaign to bring this matter to the attention of public officials
NSPE Board of Ethical Review for analogical reasoning in current case
Primary precedent illustrating engineer's public safety escalation obligations when a structurally compromised bridge is reopened against engineering advice; establishes 'full-bore' campaign standard for imminent, widespread danger
NSPE Board of Ethical Review Case No. 07-10
In BER Case 07-10, the Board was faced with a case in which Engineer A had designed and built a barn with horse stalls on his property
Drawing from the Board's discussion in BER Case Nos. 00-5 and 07-10
The BER concluded that in the present case (07-10), the limited nature of the danger does not appear to require this (higher) level of response
NSPE Board of Ethical Review for analogical reasoning and distinguishing from BER 00-5
Secondary precedent addressing engineer's obligation when a barn structure is modified and may be at risk of collapse under snow loads; establishes proportionate response standard for non-imminent, limited-scope danger
NSPE Board of Ethical Review Case No. 89-7
Reviewing earlier Board of Ethical Review Case Nos. 89-7, 90-5, and 92-6, the Board noted that the facts and circumstances facing Engineer A 'involved basic and fundamental issues of public health and safety which are at the core of engineering ethics.'
NSPE Board of Ethical Review in BER 00-5 analysis, referenced in current case
Earlier precedent cited in BER 00-5 establishing that public health and safety issues are at the core of engineering ethics and that engineers must not bow to public pressure when great dangers are present
NSPE Board of Ethical Review Case No. 90-5
Earlier precedent cited in BER 00-5 establishing that engineers must not bow to public pressure or employment situations when great dangers are present; foundational to the public safety escalation doctrine
NSPE Board of Ethical Review Case No. 92-6
Earlier precedent cited in BER 00-5 establishing that engineers must not bow to public pressure or employment situations when great dangers are present; part of the foundational trilogy on engineer public safety obligations
BER Case 00-5 (year 2000) before BER Case 07-10 (year 2007)
Detailed Bridge Inspection Report (Consulting Engineering Firm, Signed and Sealed)
a detailed inspection report prepared by a consulting engineering firm, signed and sealed, indicated seven pilings required replacement
Engineer A and county officials in BER Case 00-5
Signed and sealed inspection report by a consulting engineering firm identifying seven pilings requiring replacement; provided the technical basis for Engineer A's safety determinations and escalation actions in BER 00-5
Bridge Closure Non-Engineer Override — BER Case 00-5
From the moment the non-engineer public works director directed the retired bridge inspector's evaluation and authorized crutch pile installation, through the reopening of the bridge with a five-ton limit
A non-engineer public works director decided to have a retired bridge inspector, who was not an engineer, examine the bridge, and a decision was made to install two crutch piles under the bridge and to open it with a five-ton limit.
Non-Engineer Authority Directing Engineering Safety Decision State
Non-engineer public works director's authority over condemned bridge safety decision
Not resolved in the case — bridge remained open with inadequate engineering oversight
Non-engineer public works director directing a retired (non-engineer) bridge inspector to evaluate the condemned bridge and authorizing crutch pile installation and reopening
CausalLink_Declined to Contact Homeowner
CausalLink_Declined to Contact Local Buil
CausalLink_Expanded Structural Adequacy A
CausalLink_Included Subdivision-Wide Desi
CausalLink_Proactively Contacted State En
CausalLink_Submitted Written Report to In
Engineer A was retained by the insurance company but his public safety obligation required him to escalate the structural defect concern beyond the client to the State Board, even if the client's interests were limited to the single insured property.
Client Loyalty vs. Public Safety Priority Constraint
Engineer A's obligation of fidelity to the insurance company client was subordinate to his public safety obligation when the structural defect posed risk to subdivision homeowners beyond the client relationship.
NSPE Code of Ethics — public safety paramount over client interests
Engineer A, still concerned with his obligation to the public beyond just informing the insurance company, calls the State Board of Professional Engineers.
Upon discovery of systemic structural defect and throughout post-report escalation
Client Relationship — Insurance Company Forensic Engagement
From the insurance company's retention of Engineer A through submission of the forensic report
In performing a forensic engineering investigation for an insurance company, Engineer A is asked to look at a beam that had been burned
Engineer A's professional engagement with the insurance company as retaining client for forensic investigation
Submission of written report to insurance company (engagement scope completed)
Engineer A submits his report to the insurance company that retained him
Insurance company retains Engineer A to perform forensic engineering investigation of the fire-damaged beam
Community Petition Overriding Bridge Safety Closure — BER Case 00-5
From the filing of the 200-signature petition through the County Commission's decision to reopen the bridge with crutch piles and a five-ton limit
A rally was held, and a petition with approximately 200 signatures asking that the bridge be reopened to limited traffic was presented to the County Commission.
Public Pressure Overriding Engineering Safety Closure State
County Commission's response to public petition overriding engineering-based bridge closure
Not resolved — bridge was reopened contrary to engineering safety recommendation
For an engineer to bow to public pressure or employment situations when the engineer believes there are great dangers present would be an abrogation of the engineer's most fundamental responsibility and obligation.
On the following Monday, the barricades were found dumped in the river, and the 'Bridge Closed' sign was found beyond the trees by the roadway.
Rally and 200-signature petition presented to County Commission requesting bridge reopening; barricades removed and dumped in river
Contrary to the advice of the State Board of Professional Engineers, Engineer A did not fulfill his ethical obligations under the NSPE Code of Ethics by only providing the report to the insurance company that retained him.
Beyond the Board's finding that Engineer A did not fulfill his ethical obligations by only providing the report to the insurance company, the State Board of Professional Engineers' permissive ruling — that written notification to the insurance company was sufficient — does not and cannot displace Engineer A's independent ethical obligations under the NSPE Code of Ethics. The NSPE Code operates as a higher standard than regulatory minimums, and a state licensing board's determination of procedural adequacy addresses only the floor of legally required conduct, not the ceiling of ethical responsibility. Engineer A's reliance on the State Board's guidance as a complete discharge of his duties reflects a category error: regulatory compliance and ethical compliance are distinct standards, and an engineer who holds public safety paramount cannot treat a regulatory body's permissive ruling as a substitute for his own professional moral judgment. The fact that Engineer A remained personally concerned about public safety even after receiving the Board's ruling further undermines any claim that he genuinely believed his obligations were discharged — his continued unease was itself a signal that the ethical threshold had not been met.
The Board's conclusion implicitly establishes that the systemic, subdivision-wide nature of the structural defect — rather than the defect in the single investigated home alone — is the decisive factor elevating Engineer A's ethical obligations beyond client notification. When Engineer A recognized that the under-designed beam was part of an identical tract home design replicated across multiple occupied residences, his ethical posture shifted from that of a forensic investigator serving a single client to that of a professional with constructive knowledge of a widespread public safety hazard. The NSPE Code's mandate to hold public safety paramount is not scoped to the parties in a professional engagement; it extends to all persons foreseeably at risk. The homeowners in the subdivision were identifiable, non-consenting third parties bearing a structural risk they had no means of discovering independently. This asymmetry of knowledge — Engineer A possessing critical safety information that affected homeowners lacked and could not obtain — generated a non-delegable duty of direct notification that could not be discharged by informing only the insurance company, which had no demonstrated obligation or incentive to relay that information to the affected public. The Board's reasoning therefore implies that the breadth of identifiable third-party risk is a threshold variable: the wider and more systemic the defect, the less defensible it is to confine disclosure to the retaining client.
The Board's conclusion leaves unaddressed a compounding ethical dimension: Engineer A was aware that the construction contractor had independently decided to reuse the fire-damaged, structurally under-designed beam. This decision, made by a non-engineering party without apparent structural competence to evaluate the beam's adequacy, created an immediate and unresolved structural risk at the investigated property that existed independently of the subdivision-wide systemic defect. Under the NSPE Code, when an engineer's professional judgment is effectively overruled — even informally, by a contractor's unilateral reuse decision — and that overruling endangers life or property, the engineer bears an affirmative obligation to notify appropriate authorities rather than simply document the concern in a report submitted to a client who may not act on it. The contractor's reuse decision therefore did not diminish Engineer A's escalation obligation; it intensified it. Engineer A's ethical duty encompassed at minimum notifying local building officials with jurisdiction over the construction site, who possessed both the authority and the regulatory mandate to halt the reuse of a structurally deficient member. The failure to take this step — particularly given that the building was still under construction and building officials could have intervened before occupancy — represents the most concrete and immediately actionable gap in Engineer A's conduct, one that the Board's conclusion implicitly condemns but does not explicitly articulate.
In response to Q101: The fact that the investigated house was still under construction at the time of Engineer A's forensic examination does not materially reduce or eliminate his ethical obligation to escalate the systemic defect finding. The under-designed beam was not an isolated anomaly confined to an unoccupied structure; it was a design-level defect replicated across an entire subdivision of tract homes, many of which were already occupied. The risk calculus therefore cannot be bounded by the occupancy status of the single property under investigation. The systemic nature of the defect — affecting multiple families living in structurally identical homes — creates an independent and urgent public safety obligation that persists regardless of whether the specific inspected unit was occupied. Under NSPE Code Section I.1, the obligation to hold public safety paramount is not triggered solely by imminent danger to a specific individual but extends to foreseeable, serious risks to identifiable populations. The absence of occupants in one home is therefore ethically irrelevant when the same structural deficiency is present in occupied homes throughout the subdivision.
In response to Q102: The construction contractor's independent decision to reuse the fire-damaged beam — a decision Engineer A was aware of and which compounded an already-identified structural under-design — creates a distinct and compounding ethical obligation for Engineer A to escalate beyond the insurance company. Engineer A had already determined through structural calculations that the beam was seriously under-designed even before the fire damage was considered. The contractor's reuse decision therefore layered an additional, unresolved structural risk onto a pre-existing design defect. This combination — a deficient beam now also bearing fire damage, being reinstalled by a contractor who had independently assessed it as reusable — represents a materially more dangerous condition than either problem in isolation. Under NSPE Code Section II.1.a, when an engineer's professional judgment is effectively overruled by a non-engineering decision that endangers life or property, the engineer bears an affirmative obligation to notify appropriate authorities. The contractor's reuse decision constitutes precisely such an override of Engineer A's engineering judgment. Submitting the report to the insurance company, without further escalation to building officials who could halt the reuse, was insufficient to discharge this heightened obligation.
In response to Q103: Engineer A's reliance on the State Board's guidance that written notification to the insurance company was sufficient does not constitute an adequate good-faith defense under the NSPE Code of Ethics. The NSPE Code establishes an independent ethical standard that is explicitly higher than the minimum threshold set by regulatory or licensing authorities. The State Board's ruling addressed the question of regulatory compliance — whether Engineer A had met the minimum professional licensing standard — but it did not and could not authoritatively resolve the separate question of whether Engineer A had satisfied his ethical obligations under the NSPE Code. These are distinct inquiries. When regulatory guidance conflicts with or falls short of the NSPE Code's ethical demands, engineers are expected to apply the higher standard. The appropriate framework for engineers in this situation is to treat regulatory guidance as a floor, not a ceiling, and to independently assess whether the NSPE Code's public safety paramount obligation requires additional action. Engineer A's own persistent concern — evidenced by his proactive call to the State Board — suggests he recognized that the regulatory minimum might be insufficient, yet he accepted the Board's permissive ruling as dispositive. That acceptance was the ethical error. The standard engineers should apply is: when public safety is at stake at a systemic level, regulatory sufficiency determinations do not discharge NSPE ethical obligations.
In response to Q104: Engineer A had a meaningful, though not strictly non-delegable, ethical basis for notifying the original design engineer or architect of record about the under-designed beam. The design defect originated in the engineering and architectural design phase, and the professional most directly positioned to assess and correct the systemic defect across the entire subdivision is the engineer or architect who produced the original structural drawings. Notification to that professional would represent the most technically efficient path to remediation because it would trigger a design-level review of all tract homes sharing the same structural system. Under NSPE Code Section III.1.b, engineers are obligated to advise relevant parties when they believe a project will not be successful or is unsafe. While this provision is typically framed in terms of the engineer's own client relationship, its underlying principle supports the conclusion that peer professional notification — particularly when the defect is design-originated and systemic — is a legitimate and potentially highly effective escalation pathway. This obligation does not replace the duty to notify building officials and homeowners, but it represents an additional avenue that Engineer A failed to consider and that the Board's analysis did not address.
In response to Q201: The tension between Engineer A's faithful agent obligation to the insurance company and his third-party direct notification obligation to subdivision homeowners is real but ultimately resolvable in favor of public safety escalation. The faithful agent obligation requires Engineer A to serve his client's legitimate interests competently and loyally, but that obligation is explicitly bounded by the NSPE Code's ethical limits — it does not extend to suppressing or failing to escalate safety-critical findings that affect uninvolved third parties. The insurance company's interest in receiving a complete forensic report is fully satisfied by Engineer A's submission of the written report. The insurance company has no legitimate interest in preventing Engineer A from separately notifying building officials or homeowners about a systemic structural defect that poses serious risk to life and property. The magnitude of the systemic risk — a seriously under-designed structural member replicated across an entire subdivision of occupied homes — is precisely the threshold at which the NSPE Code's public safety paramount obligation overrides client-centered loyalty. The faithful agent obligation does not require silence toward third parties endangered by findings made during the engagement; it requires only that Engineer A not betray confidential business information unrelated to public safety. Structural defects threatening occupant safety are categorically outside the scope of legitimate client confidentiality.
In response to Q202: The scope-of-work limitation does not constitute a complete ethical defense when an engineer discovers safety-critical information incidentally during a contracted engagement. Engineer A was retained to investigate fire damage to a specific beam, but his professional competence and structural calculations led him to identify a serious design defect that extended far beyond the contracted scope. The NSPE Code does not permit engineers to compartmentalize their ethical obligations to match the boundaries of their fee agreements. The incidental observation disclosure obligation holds that once an engineer identifies a condition that poses serious risk to public safety — regardless of whether that condition falls within the contracted scope — the engineer bears an affirmative duty to disclose it to parties capable of acting on it. Engineer A partially satisfied this obligation by including the systemic defect concern in his written report to the insurance company. However, the incidental observation disclosure obligation is not discharged merely by informing the retaining client; it requires disclosure to parties who are both affected and capable of remediation, which in this case includes local building officials and, where appropriate, the homeowners association. The scope-of-work limitation is a legitimate tool for managing professional liability and fee expectations, but it cannot be invoked to justify withholding safety-critical findings from parties who need them to protect themselves.
In response to Q203: The tension between the sufficiency assessment principle — under which Engineer A received State Board confirmation that his written report was adequate — and the persistent escalation obligation drawn from BER 00-5 is resolved in favor of persistent escalation when the public safety risk is systemic and serious. BER 00-5 establishes that an engineer's ethical obligation to protect public safety does not terminate when a regulatory authority signals that no further action is required. In that precedent, the engineer was expected to continue escalating even when non-engineer authorities and political bodies effectively dismissed the safety concern. The same logic applies here: the State Board's ruling that Engineer A's written notification was sufficient addressed the regulatory compliance question but did not extinguish the independent NSPE ethical obligation. The persistent escalation obligation requires Engineer A to continue seeking effective remediation — through building officials, homeowners associations, or other appropriate channels — until the systemic structural defect is actually addressed, not merely until a regulatory body declares the minimum standard met. Accepting the State Board's permissive ruling as the endpoint of ethical responsibility conflates regulatory compliance with ethical fulfillment, a conflation the NSPE Code explicitly rejects.
In response to Q204: The proportional escalation principle does not meaningfully limit Engineer A's disclosure obligations in this case because the risk profile — a seriously under-designed structural member replicated across multiple occupied homes — clears any reasonable proportionality threshold. The proportional escalation principle is most relevant in cases where the severity or imminence of risk is ambiguous, requiring the engineer to calibrate the breadth and urgency of disclosure to the actual danger. Here, Engineer A's own structural calculations established that the beam was seriously under-designed, not marginally deficient. The systemic replication of that defect across an entire subdivision of occupied homes amplifies both the severity and the breadth of the risk. The confidentiality non-applicability principle therefore applies without meaningful limitation from proportionality: the danger is serious, it is systemic, and it affects identifiable third parties who have no independent means of discovering the risk. The two principles are not in genuine conflict in this case; proportionality analysis, properly applied to the facts, leads to the same conclusion as the categorical confidentiality non-applicability principle — Engineer A was obligated to disclose to building officials and homeowners.
In response to Q301: From a deontological perspective, Engineer A's duty to hold public safety paramount generates an absolute obligation to notify local building officials and, where appropriate, homeowners directly — an obligation that is independent of client consent and independent of the State Board's regulatory sufficiency determination. Deontological ethics grounds moral duties in the nature of the action and the relationships it implicates, not in the outcomes it produces or the permissions granted by external authorities. Engineer A's professional role as a licensed engineer creates a categorical duty to protect persons who are foreseeably endangered by conditions he has identified through his professional competence. The homeowners in the subdivision are precisely such persons: they are identifiable, they are at risk, and they have no independent means of discovering the structural defect. The NSPE Code's formulation of the public safety paramount obligation — holding it as the first and highest duty — reflects this deontological structure. No client relationship, no regulatory ruling, and no scope-of-work limitation can override a categorical duty grounded in the engineer's fundamental professional role. Engineer A's obligation to notify building officials was therefore absolute in the deontological sense, and his failure to do so constituted an ethical breach regardless of the good-faith steps he took.
In response to Q302: From a consequentialist perspective, Engineer A's decision to stop at submitting the written report to the insurance company and consulting the State Board — without directly contacting building officials or homeowners — almost certainly did not produce the best achievable outcome for the greatest number of people at risk. The insurance company, as a private party with its own financial interests, is not structurally positioned to act as an effective public safety intermediary for a subdivision-wide structural defect. There is no mechanism by which the insurance company's receipt of the report reliably translates into notification of building officials, remediation of the defect in other homes, or protection of homeowners who are not parties to the insurance claim. The consequentialist analysis therefore reveals a significant gap between the action Engineer A took and the action most likely to produce the best outcome: direct notification to local building officials, who have both the authority and the institutional mandate to inspect other homes in the subdivision and require remediation. The State Board's ruling that written notification to the insurance company was sufficient reflects a regulatory minimum, not a consequentialist optimum. The best achievable outcome — systematic inspection and remediation of all affected tract homes — required escalation beyond the insurance company.
In response to Q303: From a virtue ethics perspective, Engineer A demonstrated partial but ultimately insufficient moral courage. His proactive contact with the State Board — motivated by his own persistent concern for public safety beyond the client relationship — reflects genuine professional integrity and a virtuous disposition toward the public welfare obligation. A purely self-interested or client-captured engineer would not have made that call. However, virtue ethics demands not merely virtuous intention but virtuous action carried through to its appropriate conclusion. The virtuous forensic engineer, upon discovering a systemic structural defect affecting multiple occupied homes, would not accept a regulatory body's permissive ruling as the endpoint of moral responsibility. The virtue of practical wisdom — phronesis — requires the engineer to recognize that the State Board's ruling addressed regulatory compliance, not the full scope of ethical obligation, and to act accordingly. Engineer A's acceptance of the Board's ruling as sufficient, despite his own lingering concern, reflects a failure of moral courage at the critical moment: the moment when acting on one's ethical convictions would require going beyond what a regulatory authority has declared necessary. The virtuous engineer in this situation would have contacted building officials and the homeowners association, understanding that professional integrity sometimes requires action that exceeds the regulatory minimum.
In response to Q304: From a deontological perspective, the systemic nature of the tract home design defect generates a distinct and non-delegable duty of direct notification that cannot be discharged by informing only the retaining insurance company. The non-delegability of this duty flows from two features of the situation. First, the homeowners in the subdivision are not parties to the forensic engagement and have no independent means of learning about the structural defect; they are entirely dependent on Engineer A's professional disclosure for their safety. This dependency relationship creates a direct moral obligation that cannot be transferred to the insurance company, which has no duty to the homeowners and no institutional incentive to notify them. Second, the systemic character of the defect — affecting not one home but an entire subdivision — means that the harm is not merely possible but statistically probable across multiple occupied structures. A deontological framework that grounds duties in the nature of relationships and the foreseeability of harm requires Engineer A to treat each household in the subdivision as a direct object of his professional duty, not as a downstream beneficiary of whatever action the insurance company might choose to take. The duty is therefore non-delegable: Engineer A cannot discharge it by informing an intermediary who is not obligated to act on the information.
In response to Q401: If Engineer A had directly contacted local building officials immediately upon completing his structural calculations — before submitting the report to the insurance company — the subdivision-wide structural risk would likely have been mitigated more effectively, and that sequence of action would have better satisfied his ethical obligations under the NSPE Code. Local building officials possess the legal authority to halt construction, require structural inspections of other homes in the subdivision, and mandate remediation — powers that the insurance company does not have. Early notification to building officials would have triggered the institutional machinery most capable of addressing the systemic defect efficiently and comprehensively. The NSPE Code does not require that client notification precede regulatory notification when public safety is at stake; the paramount obligation to public safety takes precedence over the sequence of client reporting. That said, notifying building officials first would not have relieved Engineer A of his obligation to also submit a complete written report to the insurance company; both obligations coexist. The counterfactual therefore suggests that the optimal ethical sequence was parallel notification — to building officials and the insurance company simultaneously — rather than the sequential approach Engineer A took, which effectively made the insurance company the sole initial recipient of safety-critical information.
In response to Q402: If the State Board had instead told Engineer A that his written report was insufficient and that he must contact building officials and homeowners directly, Engineer A would have been ethically obligated to follow that directive — not because the State Board's authority creates the ethical obligation, but because the directive would have aligned with the independent ethical obligation already present under the NSPE Code. The Board's actual permissive ruling does not diminish or eliminate Engineer A's independent ethical responsibility; it simply means that the regulatory authority and the ethical standard diverged, with the regulatory authority setting a lower bar. The NSPE Code's ethical obligations exist independently of regulatory determinations and are not contingent on regulatory confirmation. This analysis reveals an important asymmetry: a State Board directive to escalate would have been ethically correct and should have been followed, while the Board's permissive ruling was ethically insufficient and should not have been treated as dispositive. Engineers must therefore understand that State Board guidance can confirm but cannot create ethical obligations, and can fail to require but cannot eliminate ethical obligations that arise independently from the NSPE Code.
In response to Q403: If the construction contractor had not decided to reuse the under-designed beam — meaning the immediate structural risk to the investigated property was resolved at that site — Engineer A's ethical obligation to notify building officials and subdivision homeowners about the systemic design defect in other tract homes would have remained equally strong. The contractor's reuse decision is a compounding factor that heightens the urgency of notification with respect to the specific investigated property, but the systemic defect across the subdivision exists independently of what happens to any single beam. The other occupied homes in the subdivision contain the same under-designed structural member regardless of whether the investigated home's beam is replaced or reused. The ethical obligation to notify building officials and homeowners about the subdivision-wide defect is therefore grounded in the systemic risk, not in the specific reuse decision. Removing the reuse decision from the facts would eliminate one layer of urgency but would not alter the fundamental ethical obligation to escalate the systemic finding. This analysis confirms that Engineer A's obligation to notify building officials was not contingent on the contractor's behavior; it arose from the structural calculations themselves and the recognition that the same defect was present in multiple occupied homes.
In response to Q404: If Engineer A had been retained directly by the homeowners association rather than by the insurance company, his ethical obligations regarding disclosure of the systemic subdivision defect would have been materially different in structure but not in ultimate outcome. The identity of the retaining client determines the scope of the faithful agent obligation and the direction of primary reporting, but it does not alter the NSPE Code's public safety paramount obligation. Had the homeowners association been the retaining client, Engineer A's primary reporting obligation would have run directly to the affected community, effectively collapsing the gap between client notification and third-party notification that exists in the current case. The homeowners association, as a representative body for the affected residents, would have been both the client and the primary affected party, enabling Engineer A to discharge his public safety obligation through the normal client reporting channel. However, the obligation to notify local building officials — who have independent regulatory authority over structural safety — would have persisted regardless of who retained Engineer A. This analysis illustrates that the current case's ethical complexity arises in significant part from the mismatch between the retaining client's identity (the insurance company) and the parties most affected by the safety finding (the subdivision homeowners). The NSPE Code's public safety paramount obligation is designed precisely to bridge that gap when the client relationship does not naturally align with the public safety interest.
The tension between the Faithful Agent Obligation Within Ethical Limits and the Third-Party Affected Party Direct Notification Obligation was not fully resolved by Engineer A's actions — it was merely deferred. Engineer A correctly recognized that serving the insurance company did not exhaust his ethical duties, as evidenced by his proactive call to the State Board. However, by accepting the State Board's ruling as a terminal answer, he allowed the client-loyalty principle to functionally prevail over the public-safety notification principle. The case teaches that when a systemic structural defect threatens multiple uninformed third parties — homeowners who are not parties to the forensic engagement — the Faithful Agent Obligation operates as a floor, not a ceiling. Serving the retaining client is necessary but insufficient when the magnitude of risk extends beyond the client relationship. The NSPE Code's paramount public safety mandate (Section I.1) structurally subordinates client loyalty whenever the two conflict, meaning the resolution of this tension should always favor direct notification to affected parties when the risk is serious and systemic.
The conflict between the Scope-of-Work Limitation as Incomplete Ethical Defense and the Incidental Observation Disclosure Obligation was resolved clearly against Engineer A, but the case reveals a more nuanced principle: the ethical weight of an incidental discovery scales with the severity and breadth of the risk it reveals. Engineer A was retained to assess fire damage to a single beam, yet his structural calculations revealed a serious under-design affecting an entire subdivision of occupied homes. The Scope-of-Work Limitation principle — the idea that an engineer's ethical duties are bounded by the contracted engagement — collapses entirely when an incidental finding reveals systemic public danger. The Incidental Observation Disclosure Obligation is not a minor addendum to professional practice; it is a direct expression of the paramount public safety duty under Section I.1. This case teaches that the contracted scope defines the work product delivered to the client, but it does not define the outer boundary of the engineer's ethical obligations to the public. An engineer who discovers a life-safety defect incidentally is not ethically permitted to treat that discovery as outside his professional responsibility simply because it was not the subject of his retainer.
The most consequential principle tension in this case — and the one least cleanly resolved — is the conflict between the Sufficiency Assessment of Prior Safety Reports principle and the Persistent Escalation Obligation drawn from analogous BER precedents. Engineer A consulted the State Board and received explicit confirmation that his written report to the insurance company was sufficient. The Sufficiency Assessment principle, taken in isolation, would suggest that regulatory endorsement of an engineer's actions discharges his ethical obligations. However, the Persistent Escalation Obligation — illustrated in BER 00-5, where an engineer was expected to continue escalating even when non-engineer authorities overruled his safety judgment — establishes that regulatory or institutional acquiescence does not terminate the engineer's independent ethical duty. The NSPE Code operates as a higher standard than regulatory minimums, meaning the State Board's ruling defined the legal floor, not the ethical ceiling. This case teaches a critical principle-prioritization lesson: when regulatory guidance conflicts with or falls short of the NSPE Code's public safety mandate, the engineer must apply the Code's higher standard independently. Reliance on a permissive regulatory ruling is a mitigating factor in assessing Engineer A's good faith, but it is not a complete ethical defense, because the Code's paramount public safety obligation is non-delegable and cannot be discharged by outsourcing the sufficiency determination to a regulatory body.
Engineer A's proactive contact with the State Board to disclose the structural defect findings was not barred by his confidentiality obligation to the insurance company, given the public safety implications of the systemic subdivision defect.
Confidentiality Non-Bar to Safety-Critical Regulatory Disclosure Constraint
Engineer A's confidentiality obligation to the insurance company client did not bar him from disclosing the structural defect findings to the State Board of Professional Engineers when those findings established a public safety risk to subdivision homeowners.
NSPE Code of Ethics Section 7 (confidentiality) vs. Section I (public safety paramount); BER case precedents
Engineer A, still concerned with his obligation to the public beyond just informing the insurance company, calls the State Board of Professional Engineers, apprises them of the situation, and asks what more could and should be done about the situation.
When Engineer A contacted the State Board after submitting report to insurance company
Confidentiality Non-Applicability Applied to Subdivision Defect Public Danger
Insurance company client confidentiality
Faithful Agent Obligation Within Ethical Limits
Engineer A's confidentiality obligation to the insurance company client did not bar disclosure of the systemic structural defect to local building officials and the homeowners association, because the defect posed a material danger to the public safety of subdivision residents.
Client confidentiality does not protect information about a systemic structural defect that poses a material risk to the safety of identifiable third parties who are not party to the client relationship.
Engineer A Current Case Subdivision Tract Defect Reporting Forensic Engineer
Confidentiality Non-Applicability to Public Danger Disclosure
since this matter had the potential to affect several other homeowners in the subdivision, Engineer A should have explored additional steps, including contacting local building officials, as well as the local homeowners or community civic association, to advise them of his findings.
Public danger disclosure obligation prevails over client confidentiality when the danger affects identifiable third parties.
there are basic values and principles contained in the NSPE Code of Ethics that provide important guidance to professional engineers who are faced with such situations.
Confidentiality Non-Applicability to Public Danger Disclosure Invoked by Engineer A Board Contact
Insurance Company Forensic Investigation Client
State Board of Professional Engineers Regulatory Authority
Engineer A disclosed the structural under-design finding — information arising from a confidential forensic engagement with the insurance company — to the State Board of Professional Engineers, implicitly invoking the principle that confidentiality does not bar disclosure of public dangers to appropriate authorities.
The systemic structural under-design affecting an entire subdivision constitutes a public danger of sufficient severity to trigger the confidentiality exception. Engineer A's disclosure to the State Board was not a breach of client confidentiality but an exercise of the professional obligation to advise proper authorities of apparent public dangers.
Engineer A resolved the tension by treating the State Board consultation as a disclosure to a 'proper authority' within the meaning of the confidentiality exception, rather than as a breach of his duty to the insurance company client.
Confidentiality Non-Override Public Danger Engineer A Current Case Insurance Client
Engineer A's forensic engagement with the insurance company was confidential, but the discovered structural defect posed a public safety risk to multiple homeowners in the subdivision
Engineer A (current case subdivision forensic engineer)
Confidentiality Scope Limitation for Public Danger Disclosure Obligation
Engineer A was obligated to recognize that his confidentiality obligation to the insurance company client did not bar him from disclosing the systemic structural defect to local building officials and the homeowners association, because the disclosure concerned a public danger rather than the client's proprietary commercial information.
Engineer A should have explored additional steps, including contacting local building officials, as well as the local homeowners or community civic association, to advise them of his findings.
When considering whether to disclose findings beyond the insurance company client
the facts and circumstances in the present case fall somewhere between those outlined in BER Cases 00-5 and 07-10, and would require Engineer A to take steps beyond merely submitting a written report to the insurance company.
Construction Contractor Reuse Competence Boundary Failure BER Current Case
Contractor Structural Reuse Decision Competence Boundary Recognition Capability
The construction contractor lacked or failed to exercise the capability to recognize that determining whether the fire-damaged beam was structurally adequate for reuse required independent licensed PE verification, instead making the reuse determination unilaterally.
Contractor field determination that fire-damaged beam was adequate for reuse, made without engineering analysis
Determining without independent structural engineering verification that the fire-damaged beam could be reused — a determination subsequently shown to be incorrect by Engineer A's structural calculations
Construction Contractor Reuse Decision Maker Individual
Engineer A learns that the construction contractor determined that the beam could be reused on the project.
Engineer A determines that the beam was seriously under-designed.
Engineer A initially observes that, aside from the slight fire damage, the beam looks too light to provide adequate structural support.
{'entity_type': 'Construction contractor', 'decision': 'Beam can be reused despite fire damage'}
Construction contractor on the arson-damaged residence who determined, without independent structural engineering verification, that the fire-damaged beam could be reused in the ongoing construction project; this decision is what Engineer A's forensic investigation was partly responding to.
{'type': 'decision_reviewed_by', 'target': 'Engineer A Subdivision Tract Defect Reporting Forensic Engineer'}
Construction Contractor Reuse Decision Maker
the construction contractor determined that the beam could be reused on the project
{'license': 'Professional Engineer (signed and sealed report)', 'specialty': 'Bridge inspection and structural assessment'}
Consulting engineering firm that prepared a detailed, signed and sealed bridge inspection report identifying seven pilings requiring replacement; later to be consulted by Engineer A to evaluate the adequacy of the crutch-pile remediation solution
{'type': 'client', 'target': 'Local Government / County'}
{'type': 'peer_coordination', 'target': 'Engineer A BER 00-5 Local Government Bridge Safety Engineer'}
Forensic Building Investigation Engineer
Engineer A should have also worked with the consulting engineering firm to determine if the two-crutch pile with five-ton limit design solution would be effective
The contractor — a non-engineer — determined the beam could be reused, but Engineer A's structural calculations demonstrated serious under-design. Engineer A's professional engineering judgment could not be superseded by the contractor's non-engineering determination.
Contractor Structural Reuse Authorization Non-Reliance Constraint
Engineer A could not treat the construction contractor's determination that the beam could be reused as a resolution of the structural safety concern, given that Engineer A's own structural calculations established the beam was seriously under-designed.
NSPE Code of Ethics — engineering judgment paramount; professional engineering standards for structural adequacy
Upon learning of contractor's reuse determination, after completing structural calculations
Engineer A measures the tributary area of roof, floor, and wall bearing on the beam and runs a series of structural calculations.
Following his review, Engineer A determines that the beam was seriously under-designed.
Contractor Reuse Decision Creating Unresolved Structural Risk
From Engineer A's confirmation of serious under-design through the end of the case facts; contractor's reuse decision is not reversed within the case
Engineer A learns that the construction contractor determined that the beam could be reused on the project
Confirmed Risk Without Adequate Safeguards State
Construction contractor's determination that the seriously under-designed beam could be reused, despite Engineer A's subsequent finding of serious under-design
Engineer A determines that the beam was seriously under-designed
Engineer A's structural calculations confirm serious under-design of a beam the contractor has already decided to reuse on the project
{'type': 'Elected political authority', 'jurisdiction': 'County'}
County Commission that received a petition from residents to reopen the bridge, heard Engineer A's explanation of the damage, and decided not to reopen the bridge — but later subject to escalation by Engineer A when safety violations occurred
{'type': 'authority_over', 'target': 'Engineer A BER 00-5 Local Government Bridge Safety Engineer'}
{'type': 'receives_escalation_from', 'target': 'Engineer A BER 00-5 Local Government Bridge Safety Engineer'}
The County Commission decided not to reopen the bridge
Engineer A should have taken immediate steps to go to his supervisor to press for strict enforcement of the five-ton limit, and if this was ineffective, contact state and/or federal transportation/highway officials, the state engineering licensure board, the director of public works, county commissioners
Crutch Pile Adequacy Verification Collaborative Engineer A BER 00-5 Consulting Firm
BER 00-5: Consulting engineering firm had prepared a detailed signed and sealed inspection report identifying seven pilings requiring replacement; non-engineer public works director instead installed only two crutch piles and reopened the bridge with a five-ton limit
Engineer A (BER 00-5 local government bridge safety engineer)
Crutch Pile Adequacy Verification Collaborative Obligation
Engineer A was obligated to work with the consulting engineering firm that prepared the signed and sealed bridge inspection report to determine whether the two-crutch pile with five-ton limit design solution was structurally adequate, and to report the findings of that collaborative assessment to his supervisor.
Engineer A should have also worked with the consulting engineering firm to determine if the two-crutch pile with five-ton limit design solution would be effective and report this information to his supervisor.
After observing that the bridge had been reopened with the crutch pile solution and that traffic was flowing
Within a few days, a detailed inspection report prepared by a consulting engineering firm, signed and sealed, indicated seven pilings required replacement.
Having submitted a written report to the insurance company documenting a seriously under-designed beam likely replicated across an entire subdivision of occupied tract homes, what further escalation steps — if any — does Engineer A's ethical obligation under the NSPE Code require?
Engineer A's obligation to escalate disclosure of the systemic subdivision structural defect beyond the written report submitted to the retaining insurance company — calibrated to the intermediate risk profile of a non-imminent but potentially widespread danger affecting multiple occupied tract homes.
Contact local building officials and the homeowners or community civic association directly to advise them of the systemic structural defect findings, in addition to the written report already submitted to the insurance company
Rely on the written report to the insurance company as the primary disclosure vehicle, on the grounds that the insurance company — as a sophisticated institutional actor with financial exposure — has both the incentive and the capacity to transmit the safety finding to building officials and affected homeowners without Engineer A's direct intervention
Contact local building officials only — without separately notifying the homeowners association — treating regulatory authority notification as sufficient escalation for a non-imminent structural risk while preserving client confidentiality with respect to the homeowners as a non-party group
Engineer A BER 07-10 Post-Sale Safety Notifying Engineer
After receiving the State Board's explicit ruling that his written report to the insurance company satisfied his professional obligations, should Engineer A treat that ruling as a complete discharge of his ethical duties under the NSPE Code, or must he independently apply the Code's higher standard and escalate further despite the Board's permissive guidance?
Engineer A's obligation to independently assess whether the State Board of Professional Engineers' permissive ruling — that written notification to the insurance company was sufficient — discharges his full ethical obligations under the NSPE Code, or whether the Code's higher standard requires him to treat the regulatory minimum as a floor rather than a ceiling.
Independently apply the NSPE Code's higher ethical standard by proceeding to contact local building officials and the homeowners association, treating the State Board's permissive ruling as establishing the regulatory floor but not exhausting the independent ethical obligation to hold public safety paramount
Accept the State Board's explicit ruling as a complete and authoritative discharge of professional obligations, on the grounds that the Board is the designated expert body for interpreting the scope of professional engineering duties in the jurisdiction and that overriding its guidance would undermine the coherence of the regulatory system
Return to the State Board with a more detailed presentation of the systemic subdivision-wide risk — specifically the tract home replication and the contractor's reuse decision — before concluding whether further escalation is required, treating the initial Board ruling as provisional pending full disclosure of all material facts
Upon learning that the construction contractor independently decided to reuse the fire-damaged beam that Engineer A's structural calculations had already identified as seriously under-designed, what specific escalation obligation does Engineer A bear toward local building officials who have jurisdictional authority to halt the reuse before occupancy?
Engineer A's obligation to escalate beyond the insurance company report in response to the construction contractor's independent decision to reuse the fire-damaged, structurally under-designed beam — a non-engineering override of Engineer A's professional structural adequacy determination that created a compounding and immediately actionable safety risk at the investigated property while the building was still under construction.
Directly notify local building officials with jurisdictional authority over the construction site of both the structural under-design finding and the contractor's reuse decision, enabling officials to halt the reuse before occupancy independent of whatever action the insurance company may or may not take
Ensure the written report to the insurance company explicitly and prominently documents the contractor's reuse decision alongside the structural under-design finding, and follow up with the insurance company directly to confirm receipt and inquire about intended remediation steps — treating the insurance company as the appropriate first-line actor given its contractual relationship with the construction project
Notify the original design engineer or architect of record about both the under-design finding and the contractor's reuse decision, on the grounds that the design professional most directly responsible for the structural system is best positioned to assess the compounded risk and has professional standing to intervene with the contractor and building officials more effectively than Engineer A acting outside his contracted role
After submitting a written report documenting a serious subdivision-wide structural under-design to the retaining insurance company and receiving State Board confirmation that this was sufficient, should Engineer A have independently escalated disclosure to local building officials and/or the homeowners association?
Engineer A's obligation to escalate the subdivision-wide structural defect beyond the retaining insurance company — calibrating the breadth of disclosure to the systemic, non-imminent but serious risk affecting multiple occupied tract homes, against the faithful agent obligation and the State Board's permissive ruling that written notification to the insurance company was sufficient.
Escalate directly to local building officials and the homeowners association in parallel with — or immediately following — submission of the written report to the insurance company, without waiting for the State Board's guidance or the insurance company's follow-up action
Treat the State Board's explicit confirmation that written notification to the insurance company was sufficient as a reasonable good-faith discharge of escalation obligations, document the systemic concern thoroughly in the report, and monitor whether the insurance company or State Board initiates further remediation action before taking additional steps
Notify local building officials with jurisdictional authority over the construction site — specifically to address the contractor's reuse of the deficient beam before occupancy — while deferring broader homeowner association notification to the insurance company as the retaining client with institutional capacity and legal incentive to act on the systemic finding
Declined to Contact Homeowner Association
Declined to Contact Local Building Officials
Declined to Contact Local Building Officials (Action 5) AND Declined to Contact Homeowner Association (Action 6) → Public Safety Hazard Persists (Event 5)
NSPE and professional engineering community
Professional Norms Governing Engineer Duty to Escalate Public Safety Concerns
Engineer Public Safety Escalation Standard
Engineer A, still concerned with his obligation to the public beyond just informing the insurance company, calls the State Board of Professional Engineers, apprises them of the situation, and asks what more could and should be done about the situation
Engineer A when determining whether notifying the insurance company was sufficient
Governs Engineer A's decision to escalate the structural defect concern beyond the insurance company client to the State Board of Professional Engineers, reflecting the duty to protect the public when a systemic safety risk is identified across multiple tract homes
State licensing board and professional engineering community
Professional Norms Governing Engineer Reporting Obligations to State Licensing Board
Engineer Reporting Obligation to State Board Standard
Engineer A calls the State Board of Professional Engineers, apprises them of the situation, and asks what more could and should be done about the situation
The Board's response is that Engineer A fulfilled his professional obligation by notifying the insurance company, in writing, of the defect
Engineer A and the State Board of Professional Engineers
Governs Engineer A's proactive contact with the State Board of Professional Engineers to report the structural defect and seek guidance on further obligations; the Board's response defines the scope of Engineer A's fulfilled professional duty
Engineer A BER 00-5 Local Government Bridge Safety Engineer
{'license': 'Professional Engineer', 'employer': 'Local government', 'specialty': 'Bridge infrastructure safety'}
Local government engineer with specific bridge responsibility who enforced closure of a deteriorated bridge, faced public pressure and non-engineer supervisor override, and had obligations to escalate to multiple authorities and report unlicensed practice
{'type': 'employer', 'target': 'Local Government'}
{'type': 'peer_coordination', 'target': 'Consulting Engineering Firm BER 00-5'}
{'type': 'reports_to_authority', 'target': 'County Commission BER 00-5'}
{'type': 'supervisor', 'target': 'Non-Engineer Public Works Director'}
Engineer A worked for a local government and learned about a critical situation involving a bridge
Engineer A explained the extent of the damage and the efforts underway to replace the bridge
Engineer A had barricades and signs erected within the hour on a Friday afternoon
{'license': 'Professional Engineer', 'specialty': 'Structural design (barn/agricultural structures)'}
PE who designed a barn on his own property, sold it, later learned the new owner removed structural columns and footings during an extension, and had obligations to notify the new owner and town supervisor in writing and escalate if no corrective action was taken
{'type': 'notifies', 'target': 'Jones New Property Owner BER 07-10'}
{'type': 'notifies', 'target': 'Town Supervisor BER 07-10'}
{'type': 'original_designer_of', 'target': 'Barn structure'}
Prior Design Engineer with Post-Sale Safety Awareness
Engineer A had designed and built a barn with horse stalls on his property
Engineer A learned of the extension and was concerned that the structure may be in danger of collapse due to severe snow loads
Engineer A should have also notified the new owner about the perceived deficiency in writing
Engineer A sold the property, including the barn, to Jones
Engineer A verbally contacted the town supervisor
Engineer A Client Consent Non-Prerequisite Safety Reporting BER Current Case
Client Consent Non-Prerequisite Safety Reporting Recognition Capability
Engineer A recognized that his public safety obligations extended beyond the insurance company client and did not require client consent before contacting the State Board of Professional Engineers for guidance on further obligations.
Post-report escalation to State Board despite having fulfilled minimum client-directed obligation
Independently contacting the State Board of Professional Engineers after submitting the report to the insurance company, without seeking client authorization
Engineer A Subdivision Tract Defect Reporting Forensic Engineer
{'license': 'Professional Engineer', 'specialty': 'Forensic structural investigation'}
Forensic engineer retained by an insurance company who discovered a structural defect affecting multiple homeowners in a subdivision, bearing obligations beyond merely submitting a written report to the insurance company — including contacting local building officials and the local homeowners or community civic association
{'type': 'notifies', 'target': 'Homeowners Association / Community Civic Association'}
{'type': 'reports_to', 'target': 'Local Building Officials'}
{'type': 'retained_by', 'target': 'Insurance Forensic Investigation Client'}
Subdivision Tract Defect Reporting Forensic Engineer
the State Board of Professional Engineers determined that 'Engineer A had fulfilled his professional obligation by notifying the insurance company, in writing, of the defect'
since this matter had the potential to affect several other homeowners in the subdivision, Engineer A should have explored additional steps, including contacting local building officials, as well as the local homeowners or community civic association, to advise them of his findings
under the NSPE Code of Ethics, Engineer A had an obligation to go further
Engineer A Forensic Structural Assessment BER Current Case
Fire-Damaged Structural Member Forensic Assessment Capability
Engineer A possessed advanced forensic structural assessment capability enabling him to measure tributary areas, run load calculations, and determine that the beam was seriously under-designed independent of fire damage.
Forensic investigation of arson-damaged beam in tract home under construction, retained by insurance company
Measuring tributary area of roof, floor, and wall bearing on the beam; running structural calculations; concluding the beam was seriously under-designed
Engineer A is a professional engineer and registered architect with extensive design and forensic engineering experience.
Engineer A Gray Area Public Welfare Threshold Judgment BER Current Case
Gray Area Public Welfare Threshold Judgment Capability
Engineer A exercised professional judgment to determine that the systemic risk to subdivision homeowners — while not yet confirmed in other homes — warranted escalation beyond the contracted client scope, calibrating the threshold for further action based on the magnitude of potential public welfare impact.
Uncertainty about whether defect was replicated in other tract homes required threshold judgment about escalation obligation
Expressing concern about other homes in the subdivision despite having only examined one beam; contacting the State Board to determine whether further action was warranted
Engineer A observes that since the house was a tract home, there are other identical designs in the subdivision.
Engineer A, still concerned with his obligation to the public beyond just informing the insurance company, calls the State Board of Professional Engineers
Engineer A Incidental Scope Deficiency Identification BER Current Case
Incidental Observation Out-of-Scope Safety Deficiency Identification Capability
Engineer A, retained to investigate arson damage, recognized that the beam's structural inadequacy was a separate and more serious safety deficiency beyond the arson damage scope, triggering independent disclosure obligations.
Retained for arson investigation; discovered pre-existing structural under-design defect outside contracted scope
Identifying that the beam was too light for structural support — a design defect unrelated to the arson damage that was the contracted scope of investigation
Engineer A State Board Guidance Consultation BER Current Case
State Board Guidance Consultation Capability
Engineer A demonstrated the capability to proactively consult the State Board of Professional Engineers for authoritative guidance on whether his obligations extended beyond reporting to the insurance company, and to integrate the Board's response into his final professional judgment.
Post-report consultation with State Board to determine sufficiency of completed obligations and whether further action was required
Calling the State Board of Professional Engineers, accurately describing the situation, and asking what more could and should be done; receiving and accepting the Board's guidance that written notification to the insurance company fulfilled his professional obligation
The Board's response is that Engineer A fulfilled his professional obligation by notifying the insurance company, in writing, of the defect.
{'license': 'Professional Engineer', 'additional_credential': 'Registered Architect', 'specialty': 'Forensic engineering and structural design', 'experience': 'Extensive design and forensic engineering experience'}
Licensed PE and registered architect retained by an insurance company to forensically investigate arson-damaged beam; discovers the beam is seriously under-designed; recognizes the defect likely affects multiple identical tract homes in the subdivision; reports findings in writing to the insurance company; contacts the State Board of Professional Engineers to inquire about further public-safety obligations.
{'type': 'investigates_work_of', 'target': 'Original Tract Home Design Engineer (unnamed)'}
{'type': 'notifies', 'target': 'State Board of Professional Engineers'}
{'type': 'responds_to_decision_of', 'target': 'Construction Contractor Reuse Decision Maker Individual'}
{'type': 'retained_by', 'target': 'Insurance Company Forensic Investigation Client'}
Engineer A is a professional engineer and registered architect with extensive design and forensic engineering experience
Engineer A is asked to look at a beam that had been burned, as a result of arson
Engineer A observes that since the house was a tract home, there are other identical designs in the subdivision
Engineer A writes his report and identifies the design defect
Engineer A Systemic Tract Home Defect Recognition BER Current Case
Systemic Defect Multi-Party Notification Capability
Engineer A recognized that the under-designed beam, present in a tract home, was likely replicated across identical designs in the subdivision, and that his professional obligations extended beyond reporting to the retaining insurance company.
Discovery that structural defect in one tract home likely affects multiple identical homes in the subdivision
Observing that the house was a tract home with other identical designs in the subdivision; expressing concern about the possibility that an inadequate structural member was used in other houses; including this concern in his written report
Engineer A writes his report and identifies the design defect, and expresses his larger concern regarding the possibility that an inadequate structural member was used in other houses in the subdivision.
Engineer A Written Report Defect Documentation BER Current Case
Verbal-to-Written Finding Conversion Obligation Recognition Capability
Engineer A recognized the obligation to document his findings — including both the specific beam defect and the broader systemic concern — in a written report submitted to the retaining client, ensuring the professional record was formally preserved.
Forensic investigation requiring written documentation of structural findings for insurance client
Writing a report that identifies the design defect and expresses concern about other homes in the subdivision; submitting the written report to the insurance company
Engineer A submits his report to the insurance company that retained him.
Engineer A designing and building barn before Engineer A selling property to Jones
Engineer A selling property to Jones before Jones proposing barn extension
Engineer A submitting report to insurance company before Engineer A calling the State Board of Professional Engineers
Engineer A verbally contacting town supervisor before town supervisor agreeing to review but taking no action
Engineer A's structural calculations and review before Engineer A writing and submitting report to insurance company
Ethics Code Higher Standard Non-Reliance Engineer A Insurance Report Current Case
State Board determined Engineer A fulfilled professional obligation by notifying insurance company in writing of the structural defect; BER determined NSPE Code requires more
Ethics Code Supersession of Legal Minimum Safety Obligation
Engineer A was obligated to recognize that the State Board of Professional Engineers' determination that he fulfilled his professional obligation by notifying the insurance company in writing did not exhaust his ethical obligations under the NSPE Code of Ethics, which required him to take additional steps including contacting local building officials and the homeowners association.
A state engineering licensure board, while an important guidepost in determining appropriate conduct, establishes the legal minimum standards of practice under which an individual may be subject to disciplinary action for failing to fulfill the appropriate requirements. However, the NSPE Code of Ethics establishes a higher threshold of ethical conduct.
Upon receiving or being aware of the State Board's determination that written notification to the insurance company was sufficient
the State Board of Professional Engineers determined that 'Engineer A had fulfilled his professional obligation by notifying the insurance company, in writing, of the defect,' under the NSPE Code of Ethics, Engineer A had an obligation to go further.
Ethics Code as Higher Standard Than Legal Minimum Applied to Engineer A Insurance Report
State Board determination of professional obligation
The State Board of Professional Engineers determined Engineer A fulfilled his professional obligation by notifying the insurance company in writing, but the NSPE BER concluded that the NSPE Code of Ethics required Engineer A to go further — contacting building officials and the homeowners association.
The state licensure board's determination of legal sufficiency does not exhaust the engineer's ethical obligation; the NSPE Code of Ethics requires a higher standard of conduct that may require additional steps beyond what the law compels.
Ethics Code as Higher Standard Than Legal Minimum
The NSPE Code of Ethics standard prevails over the legal minimum, requiring Engineer A to take additional proactive steps.
while the State Board of Professional Engineers determined that 'Engineer A had fulfilled his professional obligation by notifying the insurance company, in writing, of the defect,' under the NSPE Code of Ethics, Engineer A had an obligation to go further.
Expanded Structural Adequacy Assessment (Action 1) → Structural Defect Discovered (Event 2)
Engineer A initially observed the beam appeared too light, then properly grounded his professional finding in completed tributary area measurements and structural calculations before reporting the defect.
Engineer A was required to ground his professional opinion that the beam was seriously under-designed in completed structural calculations before reporting that finding — prohibiting disclosure of the initial visual observation as a confirmed professional finding prior to completing the analysis.
NSPE Code of Ethics — objectivity and factual grounding requirements; forensic engineering professional standards
Between initial visual observation and completion of structural calculations
Faithful Agent Obligation Within Ethical Limits Engineer A Current Case Insurance Company
Engineer A retained by insurance company to forensically investigate arson-damaged beam; completed investigation and submitted written report; State Board found this sufficient; BER found NSPE Code required more
Engineer A was obligated to fulfill his faithful agent duty to the insurance company by completing the contracted forensic investigation and submitting a written report of his findings, while recognizing that this faithful agent duty did not exhaust his broader ethical obligations to the public.
Throughout the forensic engagement with the insurance company
Engineer A had an obligation to go further.
Faithful Agent Obligation Within Ethical Limits Invoked by Engineer A Insurance Client Service
Third-Party Affected Party Direct Notification Obligation
Engineer A fulfilled his faithful agent obligation to the insurance company by completing the contracted forensic investigation and submitting a written report identifying the arson damage and the structural under-design. His faithful agent duty was bounded by — but not in conflict with — his independent public safety obligations.
In this case, faithful agent obligation and public welfare obligation were largely complementary: a complete and honest report served both the client's legitimate interests and the public safety interest. The tension arose only at the margin — whether the client report alone was sufficient or whether further action was required.
Engineer A resolved the tension by treating client service and public safety as a hierarchy: he fulfilled the client obligation first (written report) and then assessed whether additional public safety obligations remained, rather than treating client fidelity as a ceiling on his professional obligations.
Professional engineering community and forensic engineering practice norms
Professional Norms Governing Forensic Engineering Report Completeness and Integrity
Engineer A writes his report and identifies the design defect, and expresses his larger concern regarding the possibility that an inadequate structural member was used in other houses in the subdivision
Engineer A when preparing and submitting the forensic report to the insurance company
Governs Engineer A's obligation to document findings accurately and completely in his written report, including not only the fire damage assessment but also the identified structural design defect and its broader implications for other tract homes in the subdivision
Forensic engineering professional community
Professional Standards Governing Forensic Engineering Investigation Practice
Forensic Engineering Credential Standard
In performing a forensic engineering investigation for an insurance company, Engineer A is asked to look at a beam that had been burned, as a result of arson
Engineer A examines the 15-foot-long beam and determines that it is slightly charred
Engineer A in conducting the forensic investigation of the fire-damaged beam
Governs the conduct of Engineer A's forensic engineering investigation on behalf of the insurance company, including the scope of examination, structural analysis, and reporting obligations arising from forensic findings
Engineer A was retained by an insurance company to assess arson fire damage to a beam; during that investigation he independently determined the beam was seriously under-designed — a finding outside the original scope but material to public safety.
Scope-of-Work Non-Exculpation for Material Evidence Omission Constraint
Engineer A's contractual scope of forensic investigation (fire/arson damage assessment) did not excuse omission of the discovered structural under-design defect from his written report to the insurance company.
NSPE Code of Ethics — public safety paramount obligation; forensic engineering professional standards
At time of report preparation and submission to insurance company client
Forensic Arson Investigation Scope-Exceeding Structural Defect Discovery
From the moment Engineer A observes the beam appears too light, through structural calculations confirming serious under-design, through submission of report to insurance company
Future occupants of the residence under construction
Occupants of other identical tract homes in the subdivision
Engineer A initially observes that, aside from the slight fire damage, the beam looks too light to provide adequate structural support
Incidental Structural Deficiency Discovery State
Engineer A's discovery of under-designed beam during post-arson forensic investigation for insurance company
Submission of written report to insurance company identifying the design defect (partial termination); full termination pending regulatory or public authority action
Engineer A measures the tributary area of roof, floor, and wall bearing on the beam and runs a series of structural calculations
Engineer A's initial observation that the beam looks too light to provide adequate structural support, confirmed by subsequent structural calculations
Homeowners Association Community Civic Association
{'type': 'Community organization', 'context': 'Residential subdivision'}
The local homeowners or community civic association representing subdivision residents who may be affected by the structural defect discovered by Engineer A, and who should be notified by Engineer A of his findings beyond the insurance company report
{'type': 'receives_notification_from', 'target': 'Engineer A Current Case Subdivision Tract Defect Reporting Forensic Engineer'}
Incidental Observation Disclosure Obligation Applied to Systemic Subdivision Defect
While retained to investigate only the arson-damaged beam, Engineer A observed that the structural defect was systemic to the entire subdivision design — an observation outside the contracted scope — and was obligated to disclose this broader finding to appropriate parties beyond the insurance company client.
The obligation to disclose material safety observations made incidentally during contracted work applies even when the observation reveals a risk far broader than the contracted investigation scope.
Incidental Observation Disclosure Obligation
The disclosure obligation for incidental safety observations extends to all materially affected parties, not just the immediate client.
the facts and circumstances in the present case fall somewhere between those outlined in BER Cases 00-5 and 07-10
Incidental Observation Disclosure Obligation Invoked by Engineer A Beam Investigation
Structural under-design finding exceeding the arson damage forensic scope
Scope-of-Work Limitation as Incomplete Ethical Defense
Engineer A was retained solely to assess the arson-damaged beam for the insurance company, but his professional expertise led him to observe that the beam was structurally under-designed independent of the fire damage — a finding outside his contracted scope that he nonetheless documented and disclosed in his report.
The contracted scope was limited to assessing fire damage to the beam for insurance purposes. The structural under-design was an incidental observation triggered by Engineer A's professional expertise. The principle required him to disclose this finding despite its being outside the contracted scope, because it posed a material risk to public safety.
Engineer A resolved the tension by including the under-design finding in his report despite it exceeding the contracted scope, recognizing that professional expertise creates disclosure obligations that contractual scope limitations cannot extinguish.
Incidental Observation Safety Disclosure Engineer A Current Case Subdivision Beam
Engineer A retained solely to assess arson-damaged beam for insurance company; incidentally discovered the beam was structurally undersized, a defect likely replicated across all identical tract homes
Incidental Observation Safety Disclosure Obligation
Engineer A was obligated, having incidentally observed during his contracted forensic investigation of the arson-damaged beam that the beam was seriously undersized and that this defect was likely systemic to the entire subdivision, to disclose that observation beyond his contracted scope by reporting it to appropriate parties including local building officials and the homeowners association.
Upon completing the structural calculations confirming the beam was seriously undersized
Included Subdivision-Wide Design Defect Concern in Report
Included Subdivision-Wide Design Defect Concern in Report (Action 2) → Submitted Written Report to Insurance Company (Action 3) → State Board Responds (Event 4)
The systemic nature of the tract home design defect — potentially affecting multiple homeowners — constituted a material risk that Engineer A was prohibited from omitting from his professional report.
Engineer A was prohibited from omitting from his report the systemic risk that the under-designed beam design was replicated across multiple homes in the subdivision, as this constituted a material risk to public welfare beyond the single insured property.
NSPE Code of Ethics — completeness and non-deception obligations; public safety paramount
{'entity_type': 'Insurance company', 'engagement_type': 'Forensic investigation retention'}
Insurance company that retained Engineer A to perform a forensic engineering investigation of the arson-damaged beam; receives Engineer A's written report identifying the structural design defect; primary interest is claim resolution but is the first formal recipient of the public-safety finding.
{'type': 'retains', 'target': 'Engineer A Subdivision Tract Defect Reporting Forensic Engineer'}
Engineer A is performing a forensic engineering investigation for an insurance company
the Board's response is that Engineer A fulfilled his professional obligation by notifying the insurance company, in writing, of the defect
{'type': 'Private property owner', 'status': 'Post-sale owner of originally engineered structure'}
New owner of the barn property who proposed and built an extension removing structural columns and footings, and who should have been notified in writing by Engineer A of the perceived structural deficiency before or alongside notification to the town supervisor
{'type': 'modified_structure_designed_by', 'target': 'Engineer A BER 07-10 Post-Sale Safety Notifying Engineer'}
{'type': 'receives_notification_from', 'target': 'Engineer A BER 07-10 Post-Sale Safety Notifying Engineer'}
Jones proposed to extend the barn and, as part of the extension, removed portions of the columns and footings that supported the roof
it would have been more appropriate for Engineer A to first notify the current owner of his concerns regarding the structural integrity of the barn
Jones removing columns and footings during barn extension construction
Long-Term Public Welfare Non-Subordination Applied to Bridge Reopening Political Pressure
Non-engineer public works director crutch pile decision
The County Commission's decision not to reopen the bridge despite the petition and rally reflected the appropriate prioritization of long-term public safety over short-term community convenience; Engineer A's obligation was to support this determination and escalate when the non-engineer public works director subsequently overrode it.
Short-term community inconvenience (10-mile detour) does not justify compromising long-term public safety (bridge structural integrity); political pressure from residents does not override engineering safety determinations.
Long-Term Public Welfare Non-Subordination to Short-Term Political Gain
Long-term public welfare prevails over short-term political and community pressure.
The County Commission decided not to reopen the bridge.
National Society of Professional Engineers
Engineer A in deliberating obligations after discovering structural defect
Primary normative authority governing Engineer A's obligations to hold public safety paramount and to act beyond the immediate client when public welfare is at risk
Non-Engineer Override Resistance Escalation Engineer A BER 00-5 Bridge
BER 00-5: Non-engineer public works director directed retired bridge inspector to assess deteriorated bridge and installed crutch piles; bridge reopened with five-ton limit; no follow-up inspection; log trucks and tankers crossing regularly
Non-Engineer Safety Override Resistance and Escalation Obligation
Engineer A was obligated, upon observing that the non-engineer public works director had overridden his bridge closure by directing a retired non-engineer bridge inspector to assess the bridge and installing crutch piles without follow-up inspection, to immediately escalate to his supervisor and then to state and federal transportation officials, the state engineering licensure board, the director of public works, county commissioners, and other appropriate authorities.
A non-engineer public works director decided to have a retired bridge inspector, who was not an engineer, examine the bridge, and a decision was made to install two crutch piles under the bridge and to open it with a five-ton limit. No follow-up inspection was undertaken.
Immediately upon observing that the bridge had been reopened under the non-engineer's direction without adequate engineering review
By failing to take this action, Engineer A had ignored his basic professional and ethical obligations.
Engineer A should have taken immediate steps to go to his supervisor to press for strict enforcement of the five-ton limit, and if this was ineffective, contact state and/or federal transportation/highway officials, the state engineering licensure board, the director of public works, county commissioners, state officials, and other such authorities as appropriate.
Non-Engineer Public Works Director BER 00-5
{'license': 'None (non-engineer)', 'position': 'Public works director'}
Non-licensed public works director who directed a retired non-engineer bridge inspector to assess the bridge and made the decision to install crutch piles and reopen the bridge with a five-ton limit, bypassing licensed engineering oversight
{'type': 'directed', 'target': 'Retired Bridge Inspector BER 00-5'}
{'type': 'supervisor_of', 'target': 'Engineer A BER 00-5 Local Government Bridge Safety Engineer'}
Non-Engineer Infrastructure Decision Maker
A non-engineer public works director decided to have a retired bridge inspector, who was not an engineer, examine the bridge
a decision was made to install two crutch piles under the bridge and to open it with a five-ton limit
While performing post-arson forensic investigation, Engineer A observed the beam appeared too light, ran structural calculations, and confirmed serious under-design — a safety finding beyond the fire damage scope.
Out-of-Scope Safety Observation Disclosure Constraint
Engineer A was required to disclose the incidentally discovered structural under-design defect to the retaining client (insurance company) in writing, even though the defect fell outside the contracted scope of fire damage assessment.
NSPE Code of Ethics Section I — public safety paramount; BER precedent on out-of-scope safety observations
Upon completion of structural calculations confirming serious under-design
The contractor had already determined the beam could be reused despite Engineer A's finding of serious under-design, suggesting the client's notification alone may be insufficient to resolve the safety risk — potentially triggering further escalation obligations.
Persistent Safety Escalation Beyond Unresponsive Authority Constraint
If the insurance company failed to act on Engineer A's written notification of the structural defect, Engineer A's obligation to persist in safety escalation — beyond the client and potentially beyond the State Board ruling — was calibrated to the severity and systemic nature of the risk to subdivision homeowners.
NSPE Code of Ethics — public safety paramount; BER case precedents on escalation obligations
Post-report, if client fails to act on structural defect notification
Persistent Escalation Obligation Applied to Bridge Safety BER 00-5
Bridge crutch pile installation decision
Non-engineer public works director override of closure
Employer Concurrence Requirement for Post-Obligation Advocacy
After the non-engineer public works director overrode Engineer A's bridge closure and installed crutch piles without follow-up inspection, Engineer A was obligated to escalate through supervisor, state and federal transportation officials, licensure board, county commissioners, and state officials — not to treat the initial closure as a discharged obligation.
When an engineer's safety determination is overridden by a non-engineer official and the resulting situation poses ongoing danger, the engineer must escalate persistently through all available channels.
Persistent Escalation Obligation When Initial Safety Report Is Unacknowledged
The persistent escalation obligation overrides deference to employer hierarchy when public safety is at stake.
Engineer A should have also contacted the county governing authority and county prosecutors, state and/or federal transportation/highway officials, the state engineering licensure board, and other authorities.
Persistent Safety Escalation Engineer A BER 07-10 Town Supervisor Written Follow-Up
BER 07-10: Engineer A verbally notified town supervisor who agreed to review but took no action; BER required written follow-up and graduated escalation to county/state building officials if no action taken
Engineer A (BER 07-10 post-sale safety notifying engineer)
Persistent Safety Escalation After Unresponsive Authority Obligation
Engineer A was obligated, after the town supervisor agreed to review the matter but took no action, to follow up with written confirmation of his concerns to the town supervisor, continue monitoring the situation, and if appropriate steps were not taken within a reasonable period, contact the town supervisor again in writing with a specific deadline before escalating to county or state building officials.
Engineer A should have made a written record of his communication with the owner and town supervisor and follow the verbal communication up with a written confirmation to the town supervisor, restating his concerns, while continuing to monitor the situation.
After the town supervisor failed to take action following the verbal notification
If appropriate steps are not taken within a reasonable period of time, Engineer A should again contact the town supervisor in writing and indicate that if steps are not taken to adequately address the situation within a specific period of time, Engineer A would be required to bring the matter to the attention of county or state building officials, as appropriate.
Prior Safety Report Sufficiency Self-Assessment Engineer A Current Case State Board Finding
State Board determined written notification to insurance company was sufficient; BER determined NSPE Code required additional steps; Engineer A needed to self-assess whether his prior report discharged his full ethical duty
Prior Safety Report Sufficiency Self-Assessment Obligation
Engineer A was obligated to critically self-assess whether his written report to the insurance company was sufficiently clear and complete to discharge his full ethical obligations under the NSPE Code of Ethics, rather than relying solely on the State Board's determination that the written notification was sufficient to meet the legal minimum standard.
After submitting the written report to the insurance company and receiving or being aware of the State Board's determination
A state engineering licensure board, while an important guidepost in determining appropriate conduct, establishes the legal minimum standards of practice under which an individual may be subject to disciplinary action for failing to fulfill the appropriate requirements.
Engineer A proactively contacted the State Board to seek guidance on what more could and should be done — fulfilling the procedural obligation to seek regulatory guidance when uncertain about the scope of public safety reporting obligations in a novel forensic context.
Proactive Regulatory Guidance Seeking Constraint
Engineer A, uncertain about the full scope of his public safety obligations after notifying the insurance company, was required to proactively seek guidance from the State Board of Professional Engineers before concluding that no further action was required.
NSPE Code of Ethics — public safety paramount; professional responsibility to seek guidance in ambiguous situations
After submitting report to insurance company and before concluding obligations were discharged
Proactive Risk Disclosure Invoked by Engineer A State Board Contact
Subdivision homeowners at risk from the systemic under-design
After submitting his report to the insurance company, Engineer A proactively contacted the State Board of Professional Engineers — without being required to do so by the client or any regulatory mandate — to seek guidance on further obligations and to ensure that the systemic subdivision risk was brought to the attention of appropriate authorities.
Proactive risk disclosure required Engineer A to go beyond his contractual obligation to the insurance company and initiate contact with regulatory authorities, recognizing that the diffuse nature of the risk (affecting an entire subdivision) and the uncertainty about whether the insurance company would act to protect all affected homeowners created an independent disclosure obligation.
Engineer A treated proactive disclosure and client fidelity as complementary: he fulfilled the client obligation first (written report) and then pursued regulatory guidance, rather than treating the client report as the terminus of his professional obligation.
Proactively Contacted State Engineering Board
Proactively Contacted State Engineering Board (Action 4) → State Board Responds (Event 4) — shaping Engineer A's subsequent inaction toward building officials and homeowners
Professional Competence in Risk Assessment Invoked by Engineer A Structural Calculations
Structural adequacy assessment of the arson-damaged beam and its implications for the subdivision
Engineer A applied his structural engineering expertise to progress from a preliminary visual observation ('the beam looks too light') to a formal quantitative risk assessment (measuring tributary area, running structural calculations) that definitively established the beam was seriously under-designed.
Professional competence required Engineer A not to stop at a preliminary visual impression but to apply formal structural analysis to confirm or refute his concern. The formal calculations transformed a subjective observation into an objective professional finding that could support disclosure obligations.
Professional Competence in Risk Assessment
Engineer A measures the tributary area of roof, floor, and wall bearing on the beam and runs a series of structural calculations. Following his review, Engineer A determines that the beam was seriously under-designed.
No significant tension — competence in risk assessment aligned with all other applicable principles in this case.
Proportional Escalation Calibrated Risk Current Case Between BER 00-5 and 07-10
BER determined the current case falls between BER 00-5 (imminent bridge collapse) and BER 07-10 (barn structural concern) in terms of imminence and breadth of risk
Proportional Multi-Authority Escalation Calibrated to Risk Imminence Obligation
Engineer A was obligated to calibrate his escalation response to the intermediate risk profile of the subdivision defect — more than the limited written notification required in BER 07-10 (non-imminent, single-property risk) but less than the full-bore multi-authority campaign required in BER 00-5 (imminent, widespread bridge collapse risk) — by contacting local building officials and the homeowners association.
this Board is of the view that...the facts and circumstances in the present case fall somewhere between those outlined in BER Cases 00-5 and 07-10, and would require Engineer A to take steps beyond merely submitting a written report to the insurance company.
After completing the forensic investigation and assessing the risk profile
Although a threat isn't imminent, since this matter had the potential to affect several other homeowners in the subdivision, Engineer A should have explored additional steps, including contacting local building officials, as well as the local homeowners or community civic association
Proportional Escalation Calibrated to Subdivision Defect Risk
Subdivision structural defect risk assessment
The BER determined that the subdivision structural defect case fell between the imminent bridge collapse (BER 00-5, requiring full-bore multi-authority escalation) and the barn structural concern (BER 07-10, requiring written notification to owner and town supervisor), requiring a measured but proactive response including building officials and homeowners association.
The non-imminent but multi-homeowner nature of the subdivision defect places it in an intermediate risk category requiring escalation beyond the client but not the full-bore campaign required for imminent widespread danger.
Risk Threshold Calibration in Public Safety Reporting
the facts and circumstances in the present case fall somewhere between those outlined in BER Cases 00-5 and 07-10 , and would require Engineer A to take steps beyond merely submitting a written report to the insurance company.
The intermediate risk level requires intermediate escalation — beyond the insurance company report but not to the level of the bridge closure campaign.
Although a threat isn't imminent, since this matter had the potential to affect several other homeowners in the subdivision, Engineer A should have explored additional steps
The seriously under-designed beam, if replicated across the subdivision, posed a structural failure risk to multiple occupied or under-construction dwellings — triggering Engineer A's paramount public safety obligation beyond client notification.
Engineer A's paramount obligation to public safety required him to act beyond the immediate client relationship when he discovered a seriously under-designed structural member posing risk to occupants of multiple tract homes.
NSPE Code of Ethics Section I — engineers shall hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public
Throughout the engagement and post-report period
Public Employee Engineer Heightened Obligation Applied to Bridge Safety BER 00-5
Non-engineer public works director decision to install crutch piles
Engineer A, as a local government engineer with specific bridge responsibility, was compelled both as a professional engineer and as a public employee to pursue the bridge safety concern through all available channels — supervisor, county commission, state and federal transportation officials, licensure board — and not to yield to public pressure or the non-engineer public works director's decision.
The dual role of public employee with specific bridge responsibility and licensed professional engineer created compounded obligations requiring the highest level of escalation response.
Public Employee Engineer Heightened Public Safety Obligation
in BER Case No. 00-5 , as an employee of the local government, Engineer A had a specific responsibility for the bridge in question and was compelled both as a professional engineer and a public employee to take appropriate measures to address the issue.
The public employment duty and professional engineering duty both pointed toward full escalation, with neither providing grounds for inaction.
Public Pressure Resistance Engineer A BER 00-5 Petition Rally
BER 00-5: Residents held a rally and presented a 200-signature petition to the County Commission requesting bridge reopening; Engineer A explained the damage; County Commission decided not to reopen
Public Pressure Resistance in Safety Determination Obligation
Engineer A was obligated to maintain his professional safety determination that the bridge should remain closed despite a petition with approximately 200 signatures and a public rally demanding reopening, and to explain the technical basis for the closure to the County Commission without yielding to public pressure.
A rally was held, and a petition with approximately 200 signatures asking that the bridge be reopened to limited traffic was presented to the County Commission. Engineer A explained the extent of the damage and the efforts underway to replace the bridge. The County Commission decided not to reopen the bridge.
During the period of public pressure and the County Commission hearing
Public Safety Obligation Beyond Client Relationship
From confirmation of serious under-design through the end of the case facts; risk persists as no remediation is confirmed
The ongoing structural risk to occupants of the tract home subdivision posed by the seriously under-designed beam replicated across multiple dwellings
Engineer A, still concerned with his obligation to the public beyond just informing the insurance company
the beam had supported a second-floor bedroom, a wall, and (on both sides of the beam) a significant amount of roof of the residence
Engineer A's structural calculations confirming the beam is seriously under-designed and supports significant roof, floor, and wall loads
Public Welfare Paramount Invoked by Engineer A Subdivision Forensic
Subdivision homeowners occupying identical tract homes with under-designed structural beams
Engineer A recognized that his professional obligation extended beyond the insurance company client to the broader public — specifically the homeowners in the subdivision who occupy identical tract homes with the same seriously under-designed beam — and proactively sought regulatory guidance on how to protect them.
In this context, public welfare paramount requires Engineer A to treat the diffuse population of subdivision homeowners as the ultimate beneficiaries of his professional obligation, not merely the insurance company that retained him. The severity of the structural under-design (a beam supporting a second-floor bedroom, wall, and significant roof load) and its replication across the subdivision elevates this to a clear public safety concern.
Engineer A resolved the tension by fulfilling his client obligation (written report to insurance company) while simultaneously seeking regulatory guidance on further obligations — treating client fidelity and public welfare as complementary rather than mutually exclusive, with public welfare setting the floor.
Public Welfare Paramount Invoked in Subdivision Defect Multi-Homeowner Case
Subdivision structural defect affecting multiple homeowners
Engineer A's discovery of a systemic structural defect in a subdivision triggered an obligation to protect multiple homeowners beyond the immediate client, requiring escalation beyond the insurance company report to local building officials and the homeowners association.
Public welfare paramount requires that when a forensic investigation reveals a risk affecting identifiable third parties beyond the immediate client, the engineer must take proactive steps to protect those parties even when the contractual scope is limited to the client relationship.
Public welfare obligation overrides the limitation of the client relationship, requiring notification of building officials and homeowners association in addition to the insurance company client.
professional engineers must decide, after pointing out the situation, how far their obligation to seek corrective action reaches.
Did Engineer A fulfill his ethical obligations under the NSPE Code of Ethics by providing the report to the insurance company that retained him?
Does the fact that the house was still under construction at the time of Engineer A's investigation — meaning no occupants were yet at risk — reduce or eliminate the urgency of direct notification to homeowners in the subdivision, or does the systemic nature of the design defect across multiple occupied homes override that consideration?
To what extent does the construction contractor's independent decision to reuse the fire-damaged beam create a separate and compounding ethical obligation for Engineer A to escalate beyond the insurance company, given that Engineer A was aware of this decision and had already determined the beam was structurally under-designed?
When the State Board of Professional Engineers explicitly told Engineer A that his written notification to the insurance company was sufficient, did Engineer A's reliance on that guidance constitute a reasonable good-faith defense, and if not, what standard should engineers apply when regulatory guidance conflicts with the NSPE Code of Ethics?
Did Engineer A have an independent obligation to notify the original design engineer or the architect of record about the under-designed beam, given that the defect originated in the design phase and that professional peer notification might be the most direct path to correcting the systemic defect across the entire subdivision?
Does the Faithful Agent Obligation Within Ethical Limits — which requires Engineer A to serve the insurance company as his retaining client — conflict with the Third-Party Affected Party Direct Notification Obligation, which requires him to contact homeowners and civic associations who are not parties to his engagement, and if so, at what point does the magnitude of systemic public risk override client-centered loyalty?
Does the Scope-of-Work Limitation as Incomplete Ethical Defense conflict with the Incidental Observation Disclosure Obligation, and how should an engineer calibrate the boundary between legitimately limiting professional liability to contracted scope and the affirmative duty to disclose safety-critical findings discovered incidentally during that scope?
Does the Sufficiency Assessment of Prior Safety Reports principle — under which Engineer A consulted the State Board and received confirmation that his written report was adequate — conflict with the Persistent Escalation Obligation drawn from BER 00-5, which holds that an engineer must continue to escalate even when regulatory authorities signal that no further action is required?
Does the Confidentiality Non-Applicability to Public Danger Disclosure principle conflict with the Proportional Escalation Calibrated to Subdivision Defect Risk principle, in that the former suggests any public danger automatically removes confidentiality constraints while the latter implies that the degree of escalation — and therefore the breadth of disclosure — must be calibrated to the actual severity and imminence of the risk rather than applied categorically?
From a deontological perspective, does Engineer A's duty to hold public safety paramount create an absolute obligation to notify local building officials and homeowners directly, independent of whether the retaining insurance company consents or the State Board declares the written report sufficient?
From a consequentialist perspective, did Engineer A's decision to stop at submitting the written report to the insurance company and consulting the State Board — without directly contacting building officials or homeowners — produce the best achievable outcome for the greatest number of people at risk across the subdivision?
From a virtue ethics perspective, did Engineer A demonstrate the professional integrity and moral courage expected of a competent forensic engineer when he accepted the State Board's ruling as sufficient and declined to escalate further to building officials and homeowners, despite his own persistent concern for public safety?
From a deontological perspective, does the systemic nature of the tract home design defect — affecting multiple uninformed homeowners who are not parties to the forensic engagement — generate a distinct and non-delegable duty of direct notification that cannot be discharged by informing only the retaining insurance company?
If Engineer A had directly contacted local building officials immediately upon completing his structural calculations — before even submitting the report to the insurance company — would the subdivision-wide structural risk have been mitigated more effectively, and would that sequence of action have better satisfied his ethical obligations under the NSPE Code?
If the State Board of Professional Engineers had instead told Engineer A that his written report to the insurance company was insufficient and that he must contact building officials and homeowners directly, would Engineer A have been ethically obligated to follow that directive, and does the Board's actual permissive ruling diminish or eliminate Engineer A's independent ethical responsibility under the NSPE Code?
If the construction contractor had not already decided to reuse the under-designed beam — meaning the immediate structural risk to the investigated property was resolved — would Engineer A's ethical obligation to notify building officials and subdivision homeowners about the systemic design defect in other tract homes have been reduced, eliminated, or remained equally strong?
If Engineer A had been retained directly by the homeowners association rather than by the insurance company, would his ethical obligations regarding disclosure of the systemic subdivision defect have been materially different, and does the identity of the retaining client alter the scope of his public safety duties under the NSPE Code?
The State Board ruled that written notification to the insurance company was sufficient, but Engineer A's NSPE ethical obligations may require assessment of whether the systemic risk to subdivision homeowners warrants escalation beyond the regulatory minimum.
Post-Regulatory-Approval Escalation Proportionality Constraint
The State Board's determination that Engineer A fulfilled his professional obligation by notifying the insurance company in writing did not conclusively discharge Engineer A's independent NSPE ethical obligation to assess whether the systemic subdivision risk warranted further escalation proportionate to the danger severity.
NSPE Code of Ethics; State Board of Professional Engineers ruling; BER case precedents
After State Board issued its adequacy determination
The State Board provided an affirmative ruling — not mere inaction — that Engineer A's notification was sufficient, which establishes the regulatory floor of his obligation and defines the boundary between mandatory and discretionary further escalation.
Regulatory Authority Inaction Escalation Boundary Constraint
The State Board's affirmative determination that Engineer A's written notification to the insurance company fulfilled his professional obligation established the formal boundary of Engineer A's mandatory escalation duty, beyond which further escalation was a personal ethical choice rather than a professional requirement.
State Board of Professional Engineers ruling; NSPE Code of Ethics; BER case precedents
Regulatory Adequacy Determination — Board Declares Obligation Discharged
From the Board's response through the end of the case facts
Regulatory Adequacy Determination Constraining Further Action State
State Board of Professional Engineers' formal response that Engineer A fulfilled his professional obligation by notifying the insurance company in writing
Not terminated within the case facts; the ethical tension between regulatory closure and Engineer A's continuing concern remains open
Engineer A contacts the State Board of Professional Engineers seeking guidance on what more could and should be done; Board responds that written notification to insurance company is sufficient
Regulatory Adequacy Determination — Present Case
From the State Board's formal determination through the NSPE Board's analysis concluding that additional ethical obligations remained
The State Board of Professional Engineers determined that 'Engineer A had fulfilled his professional obligation by notifying the insurance company, in writing, of the defect'
State Board of Professional Engineers' determination that Engineer A's written notification to the insurance company fulfilled professional obligations
NSPE Board's conclusion that NSPE Code of Ethics requires Engineer A to go further than the regulatory minimum
Under the NSPE Code of Ethics, Engineer A had an obligation to go further.
State Board of Professional Engineers formally determining that Engineer A had fulfilled professional obligations by notifying the insurance company in writing
Regulatory Minimum vs. NSPE Ethical Threshold — Present Case
From the State Board's determination that Engineer A fulfilled professional obligations through the NSPE Board's conclusion that additional steps were ethically required
A state engineering licensure board, while an important guidepost in determining appropriate conduct, establishes the legal minimum standards of practice...However, the NSPE Code of Ethics establishes a higher threshold of ethical conduct.
Graduated Escalation Obligation Calibrated to Danger Severity State
Engineer A's obligation determination after State Board found written notification to insurance company sufficient
Not resolved — Engineer A had not yet taken the additional steps identified as ethically required
Engineer A should have explored additional steps, including contacting local building officials, as well as the local homeowners or community civic association
The facts and circumstances in the present case fall somewhere between those outlined in BER Cases 00-5 and 07-10
State Board of Professional Engineers determining that written notification to the insurance company was sufficient, while NSPE Code of Ethics requires a higher threshold
Resistance to Public Pressure Applied to Bridge Reopening Petition BER 00-5
Despite a petition with approximately 200 signatures and a public rally demanding bridge reopening, Engineer A's professional obligation required maintaining the safety closure determination and escalating to appropriate authorities when the non-engineer public works director overrode the closure.
Public pressure through petitions and rallies does not constitute new technical evidence warranting reassessment of a safety determination; the engineer's professional judgment on safety matters must be maintained against such pressure.
Resistance to Public Pressure on Safety Determinations
Professional safety determination prevails over public pressure; Engineer A was required to escalate rather than yield.
{'license': 'None (not an engineer)', 'status': 'Retired bridge inspector'}
Retired bridge inspector without engineering license directed by the public works director to assess the deteriorated bridge; his assessment was used to justify reopening the bridge with a five-ton limit, constituting potential unlicensed practice of engineering
{'type': 'directed_by', 'target': 'Non-Engineer Public Works Director BER 00-5'}
Unlicensed Bridge Inspector Performing Engineering Assessment
a non-engineer public works director decided to have a retired bridge inspector, who was not an engineer, examine the bridge
Engineer A should have also determined whether a basis existed for reporting the activities of the retired bridge inspector to the state board as the unlicensed practice of engineering
Retired Bridge Inspector Unlicensed Engineering Evaluation — BER Case 00-5
From the retired inspector's examination of the bridge through the authorization of crutch pile installation and reopening
Unlicensed Inspector Performing Engineering Evaluation State
Retired bridge inspector (non-engineer) performing structural evaluation used to authorize bridge reopening
Not resolved — no licensed engineer assumed responsible charge of the evaluation
Non-engineer public works director directing a retired bridge inspector (not a licensed engineer) to examine the condemned bridge
The defect was not a minor or speculative risk but a confirmed serious structural under-design with systemic implications across multiple occupied or under-construction homes — placing it at the higher end of the severity threshold requiring broader intervention.
Risk Severity Threshold Intervention Scope Constraint
The severity of the structural defect — a seriously under-designed beam supporting a second-floor bedroom, wall, and significant roof load, replicated across a subdivision — calibrated Engineer A's intervention obligation to a level requiring escalation beyond client notification alone, toward regulatory authority notification.
NSPE Code of Ethics; BER case precedents on risk-calibrated intervention obligations
Upon confirmation of serious under-design through structural calculations
Risk Threshold Calibration Current Case Subdivision Non-Imminent Widespread Risk
BER determined the subdivision defect case falls between BER 00-5 (imminent bridge collapse) and BER 07-10 (non-imminent barn concern) in terms of risk threshold
Risk Threshold Calibration Reporting Obligation
Engineer A was obligated to calibrate his reporting obligation to the specific risk profile of the subdivision defect — non-imminent but potentially widespread — recognizing that this profile required more than faithful agent reporting to the insurance company but less than the full-bore multi-authority campaign required for imminent bridge collapse.
After completing the forensic investigation and assessing the nature and breadth of the risk
Scope-of-Work Limitation as Incomplete Ethical Defense Applied to Insurance Report
Engineer A's contractual scope — forensic investigation of the arson-damaged beam for the insurance company — did not constitute a complete ethical defense for limiting notification to the insurance company when the discovered defect was systemic to the entire subdivision and material to the safety of multiple homeowners.
The contractual scope defined what Engineer A was required to investigate, but did not authorize limiting disclosure of findings already made that were material to the safety of parties beyond the immediate client.
would require Engineer A to take steps beyond merely submitting a written report to the insurance company.
The ethical obligation to disclose material safety findings to affected parties prevails over the contractual scope limitation.
Scope-of-Work Limitation as Incomplete Ethical Defense Invoked by Engineer A Report
Insurance company forensic report on the arson-damaged beam
Engineer A's contract was to assess the arson-damaged beam for insurance purposes, not to conduct a structural adequacy review of the entire residence or subdivision. Nevertheless, he included the under-design finding — and its systemic implications for the subdivision — in his report, recognizing that the scope limitation did not authorize suppression of a known material safety finding.
The scope limitation defined the boundaries of Engineer A's required investigation but did not authorize him to omit from his report findings already made within that investigation. The under-design was discovered in the course of the contracted work; its omission would have been a material suppression of a known safety risk.
Engineer A resolved the tension by including the finding in his report, treating the scope limitation as defining investigation boundaries rather than authorizing suppression of findings already made.
State Board of Professional Engineers Determination on Engineer A's Conduct
State Licensing Board Rules of Professional Conduct
A state engineering licensure board, while an important guidepost in determining appropriate conduct, establishes the legal minimum standards of practice under which an individual may be subject to disciplinary action
NSPE Board of Ethical Review to distinguish legal minimum from higher ethical threshold
The State Board determined Engineer A fulfilled professional obligations by notifying the insurance company in writing; cited as establishing the legal minimum standard of practice, which the NSPE Code of Ethics exceeds
State Board of Professional Engineers Guidance on Engineer A's Obligations
Engineer A as guidance on whether further action was required
Authoritative interpretation by the State Board that Engineer A fulfilled his professional obligation by notifying the insurance company in writing; serves as an expert ruling on the scope of the engineer's duty in this specific context
State legislature and State Board of Professional Engineers
State Board of Professional Engineers Rules of Professional Conduct
State Board of Professional Engineers in responding to Engineer A's inquiry
Regulatory framework within which the State Board of Professional Engineers operates and issues guidance on the scope of Engineer A's professional obligations regarding the public safety defect
State Board Regulatory Guidance Authority BER Current Case
The State Board of Professional Engineers demonstrated the capability to receive an engineer's inquiry about post-report obligations and render authoritative guidance that written notification to the retaining client fulfilled the professional obligation in this case.
Regulatory authority response to engineer's consultation about sufficiency of completed reporting obligations
Responding to Engineer A's inquiry by confirming that written notification to the insurance company fulfilled his professional obligation
{'entity_type': 'State government regulatory body', 'jurisdiction': 'State-level professional engineering licensure and ethics'}
State Board of Professional Engineers contacted by Engineer A for guidance on further obligations after submitting his report to the insurance company; advises that Engineer A fulfilled his professional obligation by notifying the insurance company in writing.
{'type': 'consulted_by', 'target': 'Engineer A Subdivision Tract Defect Reporting Forensic Engineer'}
{'type': 'issues_guidance_to', 'target': 'Engineer A Subdivision Tract Defect Reporting Forensic Engineer'}
Engineer A calls the State Board of Professional Engineers, apprises them of the situation, and asks what more could and should be done
Structural engineering professional bodies
Tributary Area and Structural Member Adequacy Calculation Methodology
Engineer A during forensic structural assessment
Technical standard used by Engineer A to measure tributary roof, floor, and wall loads on the beam and determine through structural calculations that the beam was seriously under-designed for its actual loading conditions
Subdivision-Wide Structural Defect Notification Applied to Current Case
Engineer A's discovery of a systemic structural defect in a subdivision during a forensic investigation of a single unit required notification of local building officials and the homeowners association representing all affected subdivision residents, beyond the insurance company client.
When a forensic investigation of a single unit reveals a systemic defect affecting the entire subdivision, the engineer's obligation extends to all affected parties, not just the immediate client.
Subdivision-Wide Structural Defect Notification Obligation
The systemic nature of the defect and its potential impact on multiple homeowners triggers notification obligations that override the limitation of the client relationship.
since this matter had the potential to affect several other homeowners in the subdivision
Subdivision-Wide Structural Defect Notification Obligation Invoked by Engineer A Tract Home Discovery
Subdivision homeowners in identical tract homes
Engineer A recognized that the tract housing context transformed a single-unit forensic finding into a systemic subdivision-wide risk: because all identical homes in the subdivision share the same design, the under-designed beam is probabilistically present in every unit, creating an obligation to notify parties beyond the immediate client who can protect the affected homeowners.
The tract housing multiplier effect — where a single design defect is replicated across dozens of identical units — creates a unique ethical obligation structure. Engineer A's recognition that 'there are other identical designs in the subdivision' and his concern about 'the possibility that an inadequate structural member was used in other houses' reflects the domain-specific logic of this principle.
The State Board resolved the immediate tension by confirming that written notification to the insurance company was sufficient, but the principle itself suggests that the homeowners association or regulatory building authority may be more appropriate notification targets when the client's interests may not align with the affected homeowners' safety interests.
Submitted Written Report to Insurance Company
Sufficiency Assessment of Prior Safety Reports Invoked by Engineer A Board Consultation
Written forensic report submitted to the insurance company
Engineer A did not treat his written report to the insurance company as automatically sufficient to discharge his public safety obligation; instead, he proactively sought the State Board's assessment of whether his report was adequate and whether further action was required — a canonical exercise of the sufficiency assessment obligation.
Engineer A's self-initiated consultation with the State Board reflects his recognition that the adequacy of a safety report cannot be self-assessed by the reporting engineer alone — it requires external validation, particularly when the risk is systemic and the client's incentives may not align with the affected homeowners' interests.
Sufficiency Assessment of Prior Safety Reports
The State Board resolved the sufficiency question by confirming that written notification to the insurance company was sufficient, providing Engineer A with authoritative external validation of his report's adequacy.
Engineer A recognized that the seriously under-designed beam was part of a tract home design replicated across multiple homes in the subdivision, creating a systemic public safety risk extending far beyond the single insured property.
Systemic Defect Multi-Stakeholder Notification Constraint
Engineer A's discovery that the under-designed beam was part of an identical tract home design used across the subdivision triggered an obligation to notify not only the insurance company but also appropriate authorities (e.g., local building officials) regarding the systemic risk to all identically constructed homes.
NSPE Code of Ethics — public safety paramount; BER case precedents on systemic defect notification
Upon recognition that the defect was replicated across the subdivision
Systemic Subdivision Defect — Present Case
From Engineer A's forensic discovery of the defect through the Board's determination that additional notification steps were required
Since this matter had the potential to affect several other homeowners in the subdivision, Engineer A should have explored additional steps, including contacting local building officials, as well as the local homeowners or community civic association, to advise them of his findings.
Systemic Design Defect Beyond Immediate Project Scope State
Design defect discovered in one home that potentially affects multiple other homeowners in the same subdivision
Not resolved — Engineer A had not yet contacted building officials or homeowners association
Engineer A's forensic evaluation revealing a structural defect with potential to affect several other homeowners in the subdivision
Systemic Tract Defect Multi-Party Notification Engineer A Current Case Subdivision
Engineer A retained by insurance company to investigate arson-damaged beam; discovered beam was seriously undersized, a defect likely replicated across all identical tract homes in the subdivision
Systemic Tract Development Defect Multi-Party Notification Obligation
Engineer A was obligated, upon discovering that the structural defect in the arson-damaged residence was systemic to the entire subdivision due to identical tract construction, to notify local building officials and the local homeowners or community civic association of his findings, in addition to his written report to the insurance company.
After completing the forensic investigation and confirming the systemic nature of the defect
since this matter had the potential to affect several other homeowners in the subdivision, Engineer A should have explored additional steps
Systemic Tract Home Subdivision Design Defect Risk
From Engineer A's observation that the house is a tract home with identical designs in the subdivision, through report submission, through regulatory board contact
Occupants and future occupants of all identical tract homes in the subdivision
Engineer A's recognition that the under-designed beam is part of an identical design used across multiple homes in the subdivision
Not terminated within the case facts; regulatory board's response does not confirm remediation of the systemic risk
Engineer A observes that since the house is a tract home, there are other identical designs in the subdivision — meaning the structural defect is likely replicated across multiple dwellings
Third-Party Affected Party Direct Notification Applied to Barn Owner Jones BER 07-10
Engineer A was required to notify Jones, the new property owner who had removed structural columns and footings, directly and in writing of the structural concern — not merely to notify the town supervisor — because Jones was the party directly exposed to the hazard and capable of taking immediate remedial action.
Direct notification to the affected property owner is required in addition to regulatory notification, because the owner is the party with the most immediate ability to address the hazard.
in the Board's view, it would have been more appropriate for Engineer A to first notify the current owner of his concerns regarding the structural integrity of the barn.
No confidentiality interest bars notification to the affected owner; the notification serves the owner's own safety interest.
Engineer A should have also notified the new owner about the perceived deficiency in writing.
Third-Party Affected Party Direct Notification Obligation Invoked by Engineer A Subdivision Homeowners
The subdivision homeowners occupying identical tract homes are identifiable third parties directly exposed to the structural under-design hazard who are not party to the insurance company engagement. Engineer A's concern about whether notifying the insurance company alone suffices raises the question of whether direct notification to those homeowners — or their representative homeowners association — is independently required.
The State Board's response — that Engineer A fulfilled his obligation by notifying the insurance company in writing — implicitly resolved the tension in favor of client notification as sufficient. However, the principle itself raises the question of whether the insurance company, as a commercial entity with interests potentially adverse to the homeowners, is an adequate proxy for direct notification to the affected parties.
The State Board resolved the tension by treating written notification to the insurance company as sufficient discharge of the public safety obligation, implicitly relying on the insurance company to take appropriate action to protect the homeowners.
{'type': 'Elected/appointed municipal official', 'jurisdiction': 'Town'}
Municipal official with highest authority in the jurisdiction who received verbal notification from Engineer A about the structural concern, agreed to review the matter but took no action, and who should have received written follow-up with escalation warnings
Engineer A verbally contacted the town supervisor, who agreed to review the matter, but no action was taken
Engineer A notifying the town supervisor—the individual presumably with the most authority in the jurisdiction—in writing
Engineer A should again contact the town supervisor in writing and indicate that if steps are not taken to adequately address the situation within a specific period of time, Engineer A would be required to bring the matter to the attention of county or state building officials
NSPE Board of Ethical Review and state licensing authorities
NSPE Board of Ethical Review in BER 00-5 analysis
Governs Engineer A's obligation to determine whether the retired bridge inspector's activities constituted unlicensed practice of engineering and to report such activities to the state licensing board
As embodied in NSPE Code and BER precedents
Unlicensed Engineering Assessment Determination Reporting Engineer A BER 00-5 Bridge Inspector
BER 00-5: Non-engineer public works director directed a retired bridge inspector (not a licensed engineer) to examine the bridge; the inspector's assessment was used to justify reopening the bridge with crutch piles
Unlicensed Engineering Assessment Determination and Reporting Obligation
Engineer A was obligated to determine whether the retired bridge inspector's structural assessment of the deteriorated bridge — used to justify installing crutch piles and reopening the bridge — constituted the unlicensed practice of engineering under applicable state law, and if so, to report that activity to the state engineering licensure board.
Engineer A should have also determined whether a basis existed for reporting the activities of the retired bridge inspector to the state board as the unlicensed practice of engineering.
Upon learning that the retired bridge inspector had been directed to perform the structural assessment
Unlicensed Practice Reporting Obligation Applied to Retired Bridge Inspector BER 00-5
Non-Engineer Public Works Director BER 00-5 decision
Retired Bridge Inspector BER 00-5 assessment
Engineer A was obligated to determine whether the retired bridge inspector's assessment of the deteriorated bridge — used by the non-engineer public works director to justify installing crutch piles and reopening the bridge — constituted the unlicensed practice of engineering, and if so, to report this to the state licensure board.
When a non-engineer official directs a non-licensed inspector to perform what amounts to an engineering assessment, and uses that assessment to override a licensed engineer's safety determination, the licensed engineer has an obligation to challenge the unlicensed practice.
Unlicensed Practice Prohibition and Challenge Obligation
The obligation to challenge unlicensed practice is part of the broader escalation obligation and does not require employer concurrence.
Engineer A's report needed to be complete, including both the arson damage assessment and the independently discovered structural deficiency and its systemic implications for the tract home subdivision.
Engineer A's written report to the insurance company was required to include not only the fire damage findings but also the structural under-design defect and the systemic concern about identical designs across the subdivision.
NSPE Code of Ethics — completeness and non-deception obligations; professional report integrity standards
At time of report preparation and submission
Written Documentation Requirement Applied to Barn Structural Concern BER 07-10
Barn structural concern notification to Jones
Verbal communication with town supervisor
Engineer A's verbal notification to the town supervisor about the barn structural concern was insufficient; the BER required written notification to the new owner, written confirmation to the town supervisor, and written follow-up with a specific deadline if action was not taken.
Verbal safety communications must be followed by written documentation to create a clear, actionable record and to demonstrate discharge of professional obligation.
Written Documentation Requirement for Safety Notification
Written documentation requirement supplements rather than replaces verbal communication, ensuring the safety concern is formally recorded.
Engineer A should have made a written record of his communication with the owner and town supervisor and follow the verbal communication up with a written confirmation to the town supervisor, restating his concerns
Written Third-Party Safety Notification Engineer A BER 07-10 Jones Barn Owner
BER 07-10: Engineer A designed a barn, sold the property to Jones, learned Jones removed structural columns and footings during an extension; Engineer A verbally notified the town supervisor but did not notify Jones in writing
Written Third-Party Safety Notification Obligation
Engineer A was obligated to notify Jones, the new property owner who had removed structural columns and footings from the barn, in writing of the perceived structural deficiency and risk of collapse under severe snow loads, in addition to verbally notifying the town supervisor.
the Board concluded that while Engineer A had fulfilled his ethical obligation by taking prudent action in notifying the town supervisor—the individual presumably with the most authority in the jurisdiction—Engineer A should have also notified the new owner about the perceived deficiency in writing.
Upon learning of Jones's structural modifications and forming the concern about potential collapse
arson event during residence under construction
authorization for bridge replacement before state and federal transportation department reviews
barricades and signs erected on Friday before barricades found dumped in river on Monday
barricades found dumped on Monday before more permanent barricades and signs installed
bridge built by state before bridge given to counties
bridge closure before detailed inspection report received
bridge given to counties before bridge closure in June 2000
bridge inspector telephone call to Engineer A before barricades and signs erected
detailed inspection report before authorization obtained for bridge replacement
initial arson investigation before Engineer A learning contractor's decision to reuse beam
rally and petition before County Commission decision not to reopen bridge
town approval and certificate of occupancy before Engineer A learning of the extension