Maybe the guy is a scumbag and deserves to be thrown in the clink and have the key tossed in a outhouse.
But I'd like to get his side of the story, no lawyers, over a beer.
There was a highly publicized case in Las Vegas where a very good, honest engineer had his license suspended for a violation. I knew the guy, and even without talking to him it seems like a railroad. There was a lot of politics involved and someone had to be hung.
Wonder what the guy's insurance (assuming he has some) would do about this. Don't think ours would be very happy with us labeling things as 'safe'. Though if it's a standard form with only a select few options there may be leniency.
And on 'governmental immunity', the PEs that work for the city may not have to worry about being liable for this. But if it's determined that the building department had a duty to do something and didn't, the building department or city could certainly be deemed liable. If I'm filing a civil suit, I want to go after them instead of the individuals anyways. They've got bigger pockets.
BrianPetersen---they will chase the deeper pockets. The engineer (like all of us!) will have limited resources. He probably has professional liability insurance, but those are declining limit coverages....meaning that his defense costs come out of his insurance limits. I worked on one a few years back where the engineer was clearly at fault, had a professional liability policy coverage of $1,000,000 and when his lawyer got finished "defending" him, there was only about $400,000 left for the damaged party. They got that, but their damages were about $4.5 million (construction defect case).
So if an attorney can get past the sovereign immunity issue because of their negligence, the "public" has a much deeper pocket than the engineer. The property owner also likely has a lot more coverage than the engineer, so they will look hard in that direction as well. They won't ignore any of them, but they will try to weave the entanglements such that they get the most return.
Just a thought: I think it is all and well for us to want to find culpability with the city/government/etc. especially considering how they sometimes make our lives as engineers a royal pain. However, as a taxpayer, I'm not so sure I'd be willing to lower the threshold to liability to the gov't for incompetent city inspectors.....just saying.
As a taxpayer, I am rather interested in having the public officials actually do the jobs that I am paying them for, instead of being useless and doing nothing while still getting paid.
If that means occasionally an incompetent public official has to be whipped in order to improve compliance of the rest ... so be it.
Brian, your alternate universe sounds like a great place. You and your star should let us know how y'all plan to place a majority of competent people in the government and I'll subscribe. Allowing the public to sue the pants off the public is not the answer. Who would work for the gov't if they were held to the same standard as private sector work? Nobody would, that's who. I'm still not convinced that my tax dollars should be open to a lower threshold for liability. If you think McDonalds and Walmart get sued for stupid stuff, imagine how much your taxes would increase if you had it your way. Do you really think it would only be the occasional guy getting whipped? As an engineer, I try to solve problems in the real world, not the imaginary fairy tale of how things "should be".
Now, this question doesn't apply if you don't actually visit the site...
But, what is the scope of the required NYC inspections? In another large city, the engineer only needs to review a portion (perhaps only one drop per side on a highrise) of the façade during each review period. Does NYC require that 100% of the façade be observed per inspection?
I say this, because it's not out of the realm that an isolated window sill make it through periodic inspections...and lead to a failure. Although, where there is one there are usually several.
And you have to visit the site to see them.
Shame.
"We shape our buildings, thereafter they shape us." -WSC
