Holding engineers accountable. 2

[cranky108]

With the recent headline of scientests being prosecuted for failing to predice earth quacks, can engineers be far behind?

Can engineers be held accountable for not predicting other natural events?

 

[KENAT]

Are weather forecasters held accountable?

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[msquared48]

The law is like speed limit signs. If they want more money, they will change the rules and lower the speed limit with the excuse that they have to protect us from ourselves.

Face it. They will always want more money...

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

http://mmcengineering.tripod.com

 

[DRWeig]

Kenat, the answer is yes -- but only every now and then.

My dad and I spent a chilly, windy, nasty-looking, rain-soaked day on a lake fishing for bass. The local weather anchor had predicted warm and sunny. We heard a few other fisherman saying they'd like punch John Doe if they ever saw him. The very next day, a man ran onto the set during a live weather broadcast and decked him. My dad laughed so hard he fell out of his La-Z-Boy.

We hauled in a mess of mighty tasty bass in spite of the weather.

Back to topic: Nearly 400,000 lawyers have graduated in the past 10 years in the US. What do most of them do when they enter the workforce? That's right, they file lawsuits. There were way too many lawyers to start with. So, in order to give some work to the annual 40,000+ new, fresh-out-of-the-box JDs, the tort specialists have been probing for new frontiers in creative lawsuits.

I fully expect to be sued one day for not anticipating that one of my control panels might one day be attacked by helicopter gunships or some equally unlikely act of war or nature.


Best to you,

Goober Dave

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[kylesito]

We need liability insurance to protect us from lawyers.

We need lawyers to help us understand liability insurance.

Does anyone else see where the real problem is?



PE, SE
Eastern United States

"If a builder builds a house for someone, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built falls in and kills its owner, then that builder shall be put to death!"
~Code of Hammurabi

 

[moltenmetal]

The United States is a society which apparently is very suspicious of government regulation in an effort to prevent harm in the first place. Instead, it has lots of lawyers working on contingency to help compensate the victims (and themselves 10 fold more of course) after the harm is done.

In Canada we have some ridiculous lawsuits too- especially recently, since we permitted "class action" suits to be filed. Lots of people here feel that if anything bad happens to them, it must be somebody else's fault. However, lawyers still can't be paid on contingency here, so there is much less liability fishing going on here than in the US. Some call the cost of legal representation a barrier to obtaining justice, but it's also a barrier against frivolous lawsuits to some degree as well.

 

[moltenmetal]

FYI: lawyers per capita, approximate numbers: USA 1/250, Canada 1/420, Japan 1/4100...

 

[beej67]

Heh.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm certainly liable for the stuff I design.

And by the way, the American media is completely misrepresenting that case. Those earthquake guys didn't get thrown in jail for not predicting an earthquake. They got thrown in jail for very specifically predicting "Not Earthquake," at the direction of their non-scientist politician boss. They were all also picking up a weekly paycheck for identifying earthquake *risk*, which includes analyzing existing buildings for risk of collapse, and hadn't bothered to do that part of their job. The prosecution's case said basically, "If you claim that earthquake risk is unknowable, then why are you collecting a paycheck to assess earthquake risk?"

Here's a quote:

When Boschi, the country's leading seismologist, was asked by the judge why he followed what his boss, the head of the civil protection agency, told him to tell people, even if it went against his own better judgement, Boschi responded: "when my boss tells me to go somewhere and say A, then I go there and say A".

How many of you engineers would say something like that in a trial? You'd lose on the spot. There's a lot more to this than Fox News is letting on.



Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

http://www.campbellcivil.com

 

[beej67]

Another quote worth including in the discussion...

"I'm not crazy," Picuti says. "I know they can't predict earthquakes. The basis of the charges is not that they didn't predict the earthquake. As functionaries of the state, they had certain duties imposed by law: to evaluate and characterize the risks that were present in L'Aquila." Part of that risk assessment, he says, should have included the density of the urban population and the known fragility of many ancient buildings in the city centre. "They were obligated to evaluate the degree of risk given all these factors," he says, "and they did not."

The case was about negligence of duty, not about whether they could predict an earthquake. An engineer in the US would be just as liable. Even in risk assessment. One of the guys convicted told people that they shouldn't leave their house during preshock tremors, they should pour themselves a glass of wine instead. Seriously.

Now whether that's worth 6 years in jail is, I suppose, an issue for each country to decide for itself. Seems steep. But after reading up on the details, there appears to be clear negligence.


Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

http://www.campbellcivil.com

 

[olixus]

I agree with you beej67.

A mistake is a mistake and I believe an honnest mistake should be, to some extent, forgiven. Negligence is negligence and going against your judgement under the word of your boss is a big problem.

I'm still a student, but one thing I learned and will remember from my engineering ethic course is that if you are aware of something that could potentially harm someone, it is your duty to flag it. Failure to do so is a good enough reason to remove your licence.

 

[cranky108]

Maybe they diden't do what is on there job description. However every job description I ever had also included "Other duties as assigned by supervisor", and if your supervisor told you to do something, dosen't he have some expectation of being ethicial?

I would believe that a goverment official being told to reassure the public of the lack of danger to avoid a panic does have some believability.

 

[beej67]

I don't know what it's like in your field.

In civil engineering, if my boss or client tells me to say, do, or stamp something that I believe is wrong, I tell him "no." And if I say "yes" then I'm liable.

Now clearly these guys were scientists, not engineers, but once you get into risk assessment the line gets somewhat blurry. I guess the question is how blurry.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

http://www.campbellcivil.com

 

[YoungTurk]

So did the boss get charged as well?

In aerospace (FAA) some people show compliance and others find compliance with regulations. If something goes awry, the question is which group made the mistake or oversight. In engineering it basically becomes - was the analysis wrong (not properly shown), or was the oversight lacking (no proper finding).

In this situation, it sounds like the same people were tasked with doing the analysis and announcing the result. Seems a better system would have the scientists hand over data to another group (possible the supervisor) tasked with determining and conveying the necessary public announcements.

 

[beej67]

I do not think the boss was charged.

In the somewhat parallel case of CE, the boss (client) would not be liable unless the client went against the recommendations of the PE. It is the PE's job to ensure that the design and/or analysis is correct and to the appropriate standard of care, regardless what the client structs the PE to do.

At least as far as I'm aware. I'm sure there are other folks on Eng-Tips who have much better experience in this area than I do. Thankfully I've never been involved directly in anything like this.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

http://www.campbellcivil.com

 

[DHambley]

NEVER perform bad engineering because your boss ordered you to do so.

Years ago as a young engineer I did that because I felt pressured. Then I got blamed because the system didn't work. I don't do that any more.

I am a contract engineer and have had the wonderful opportunity to work at a lot of different companies and have worked for all types of bosses. When I am ordered to use incorrect equations or design a system which I know from the past will not work, it is usually for some goofy reason like, the boss liked the guy who quit before I got there. "He used 2+3=8 in his equations so why don't you?" Usually I can convince them that 2+3=5; sometimes they don't believe me and they get angrier. I have had to walk away from some jobs for that reason, but I will not design bad systems because I am ordered to do so.

 

[stanweld]

Engineers in the USA have been criminally prosecuted, convicted and served prison time in the past and will undoubtedly be similarly procecuted in the future. Deaths resulting from negligent or fraudulent engineering practices were involved in all criminal prosecutions.

 

[cranky108]

Fraudulent engineering practices should be prosecuted. Negligent from a perspective may also be prosecuted, or if it is from something that is unknowable, not.

My perspective is none of us has a crystal ball, and we are all human (there maybe a few I question), so should engineers be held criminaly for things we would not normally have any knoledge of. Say, as an extreem example, should we be held criminaly if the carpet makes a building we design a fire hazard?

Can it be so simple that we blame an engineer if a sink hole develops under a highway?