Can you sign/seal on another engineer's behalf? (US)

[AnimusVox]

U.S. - I'm an EIT and I just switched jobs from a larger company to a smaller one.

At the larger company, it wasn't unusual for one PE to sign/seal for another if they were away. It was well understood and communicated that engineer 1 would only let engineer 2, but no other PE, sign & seal on his/her behalf.

My mentor at this smaller company was under the impression that such practice is illegal. This is within the consulting structural engineering industry.

Can someone lend some insight? Thanks!

 

[JAE]

Each US state has variations on their engineering rules and laws but generally:
1. The sealing engineer is required to only seal and sign designs for which they have direct responsible charge, or...
2. They should be fully confident in the design via their own design efforts on it, or...
3. They have reviewed another engineer's design fully to the extent that they can take responsibility for the design and ensure that public safety and welfare is covered.
4. They cannot:
a. Simply do a cursory review of another's design and sign/seal it
b. Simply sign and seal it assuming their design engineer is a "good person and good engineer" and therefore have confidence in their designs without looking at them.
c. Simply sign and seal it no matter who designed it.
d. Simply sign and seal it because it's company policy that certain engineers can sign other certain engineer's designs.




Check out Eng-Tips Forum's Policies here:
faq731-376

 

[EngineeringEric]

I have a very close working relation with another PE in my firm. We have inherited each others jobs half way through and review all calcs and may seal it. This is never done without a full review; it also kills the budget! Sometimes he adjusts my contract documents or changes things and i do the same for his.

Now this only happens when both are fully aware of the job and we perform a full review of staff engineer's work and each others work. I admit i am sure i scrutinize his less than say a 1st year EIT, but i am also comfortable with the way his calcs follow and progress.

Also, this never happens at the 11th hour. No job of mine leaves while i am out of town. Either I finish it before or it gets completed when i return. IF i give away a job it is usually before or at a 40% submission level.

 

[dik]

I would think that if you were familiar with the work and had 'checked' things out... and were happy with the documents and prepared to accept the responsibility, there would be nothing wrong with that. It would be similar to me sealing work undertaken by an EIT or whatever.

Dik

 

[JStephen]

Assuming you don't mean Engineer A is signing Engineer B's signature and stamping Engineer B's stamp?

 

[dik]

JS... that's bad...

Dik

 

[JStephen]

That's how I read the question, until I saw the other answers.

 

[AnimusVox]

Okay, thanks everyone. Here's some clarification on how the flow of a project would go, for those that are curious:

1. EIT (me) designs the entire project from start to finish, then I bring it to my mentor (PE #1)
2. PE #1 conducts a thorough review of calculations and drawings, and if it passes, it moves onto the EOR (PE#2)
3. PE#2 (EOR) conducts a brief 20 min - 1 hr review of calcs & drawings, then signs & seals the calcs and drawings.

This happened because, for my old company of ~150 employees, to achieve licensure in every state, there were some PEs that would be licensed in several states (we would have only a couple of California PEs, for example). (This would only occur for states not located within our region that PE#1 would be licensed in. For every other regional project, PE #1 is the EOR)

From the responses I'm gleaning that this practice is totally unacceptable. Thanks everyone.

 

[bootlegend]

2. They should be fully confident in the design via their own design efforts on it, or...

3. PE#2 (EOR) conducts a brief 20 min - 1 hr review of calcs & drawings, then signs & seals the calcs and drawings.

Is it possible that the structure was simple enough or PE#2 has performed enough similar/same designs of the same kind that PE#2 can verify the design and feel confident in it in that time period? I think it depends on the uniqueness of the project and the experience of PE#2. I can see someone verifying a simple building with standard connections in one hour.

 

[IRstuff]

(b) Responsible Charge Criteria. In order to evaluate whether an engineer is in responsible charge, the following must be considered: The professional engineer who signs engineering documents must be capable of answering questions asked by individuals who are licensed by the Board in the appropriate branch of professional engineering relevant to the project and who are fully competent and proficient by education and experience in the field or fields of professional engineering relevant to the project. These questions would be relevant to the engineering decisions made during the individual’s participation in the project, and in sufficient detail to leave little question as to the engineer’s technical knowledge of the engineering performed. It is not necessary to defend decisions as in an adversarial situation, but only to demonstrate that the individual in responsible charge made, or reviewed and approved, them and possessed sufficient knowledge of the project to make, or review and approve, them. Examples of questions to be answered by the engineer could relate to criteria for design, methods of analysis, methods of manufacture and construction, selection of materials and systems, economics of alternate solutions, and environmental considerations. The individual should be able to clearly express the extent of control and how it is exercised and to demonstrate that the engineer is answerable within said extent of control.

Based on my reading, PE#2 does not need to know intimately, the details of the calculations, only the methodology of the calculations, and the decisions based on those calculations.

Otherwise, what is the point of "responsible charge," if PE#2 has to crank through all the math with shadowed calculations? PE#2 wouldn't get much of their own work done, if that were the situation.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list

http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm

 

[EDub24]

I have to think that PE #2 must be pretty confident in the design to be able to sign/stamp a project after only a 20 min - 1 hour review. Here in CA whoever stamps the drawings must be willing to take responsible charge if he didn't do the actual design. See the excerpt from the CA Professional Engineers Act below:

§§ 6735. All civil (including structural and geotechnical) engineering plans, calculations, specifications, and reports (hereinafter referred to as "documents") shall be prepared by, or under the responsible charge of, a licensed civil engineer and shall include his or her name and license number....

By my interpretation that is saying as long as PE #2 is prepared to take responsible charge of the documents he shouldn't be the one signing/stamping whether or not he does the actual design/review. Although personally I wouldn't sign/stamp documents without making sure I was 100% confident in them.