Partial Mall Collapse 7

[BAretired]

There is another current thread about this subject:
thread507-327024

During my practicing years, I avoided this type of work unless the client wanted me to look at a specific problem.

Usually the client wanted an engineering report to present to his bank for mortgage purposes and was not prepared to pay for a thorough engineering review.

The potential liability was the thing that scared me, so I tried to avoid that type of project.

BA

 

[JAE]

rowingengineer - I understand the idea of following your scope and getting paid for what you do.

My question is more in line with - once the scope is completed, you've provided the services contracted for, and yet the visible things you've seen maybe suggest to you that there might be "more to the story", don't we have an obligation to recommend to the client that further study (i.e. more scope) might be necessary?

I'm not saying that I personally would be doing the additional work as the testing or methods might be beyond my expertise. It just seems that we have a moral, and engineering ethical duty to push for more study if we suspect danger.

That is the essence of the collapse story referred to above. Numerous engineers wrote reports over time. It seems to me that the engineers who stopped at their "scope" and just wrote a report, would be more likely to get sued than the engineer who wrote a report and then recommended further study. Sort of putting the monkey on the back of the owner instead of leaving the perspective that the engineer didn't go far enough in their study, or didn't bother to really look at the problems.

 

[charliealphabravo]

Just to clarify, I wasn't speaking of doing something for nothing or providing engineering services beyond the client's scope.

I was contemplating an inspection that started out as visual; then, because of circumstances and observations or engineering instinct, resulted in the delivery of written recommendations to the client for further exploratory work. That is the engineer's professional and ethical responsibility barring some clear threat to life safety. If the engineer's judgement is overruled then in most jurisdictions that should start another ball rolling which ensures that the recommendation is not ignored.

 

[dik]

I was just thinking that the OPP appeal through the PEO may mean that the Mall Owner may not be cooperating with the investigation...

Dik

 

[MrHershey]

I would absolutely recommend to the client that further investigations be done. Make it clear that there could be significant problems and potential life safety concerns.

Obviously if they're not willing to pay you or anyone else to do it, then there's really not a whole lot to be done beyond that. If you're absolutely sure, could report to building department I suppose.