I think was Wooten...
And in my opinion this conversation has completely missed one of the key legal tests: Duty of Care (also often refered to as the engineer's standard of care). The duty requires an engineer to apply reasonable care and skill which can be expected of an ordinary engineer of ordinary competence. This is measured by comparison to other engineers practicing at the same time in similar circumstances, as well as to standards applicable to the works. Since the application of any standard or code is a matter of interpretation, if other engineers of similar training and experience can be shown to make the same assumptions in their work, you have fulfilled your duty of care, or met the standard of care, depending on your prefered terminology. This does not, however, preclude an argument that you were excersing your professional skills outside of the reasonable scope with regard to your level of experience.
Thus, if an engineer applies reasonable skill to works of reasonable scope and complexity given their level of experience, AND further that the interpretations and assumptions applied are used by other engineers practicing in industry, that engineer will likely be found to be in the right of law.
I refer you all to the excellent, must read (in my opinion) text of "Law for Professional Engineers" by D.L. Marston. On p34 Marston quotes a halmark Canadian case regarding the liability of an engineer, which in turn quotes from Halsbury's Laws of England, the text reads:
"Every person who enters into a profession undertakes to bring to the exercise of it a reasonable degree of care and skill, and represents himself as understanding the subject and qualified to act in the business in which he professes to act. The employer buys both skill and judgement, and the architect ought not to undertake work if it cannot succeed, and he should know whether it will or not.
[then further down it continues quoting with]
As to the amount of skill required, the architect or engineer need not necessarily exercise an extra ordinary degree of skill. It is not enough to make him responsible that others of greater experience or ability might have used a greater degree of skill, or even that he might have used some greater degree. The question is whether there has been such a want of competent care and skill, leading to a bad result, as to amount to negligence."
I feel quite strongly that we all must apply our engineering judgement to all situations (nods head to strguy11, civilperson, cap 4000, HgTX & swearingen), and that an the unfortunate event that you ever wind up in court, not matter what you write down a lawyer will try to discredit, embarrase, bully, intimidate and abuse you. At the end of the day it all boils down to ethics...
Can you, honestly, say that you have fulfilled your duty of care to the client and public at large with a 5% "overstress"?
I say Yes.
Except for in Cold Form Steel.
Regards,
YS.
P.S. Not trying to be funny with the CFS comment... That stuff's fun, but totally unforgiving.
B.Eng (Carleton)
Working in New Zealand, thinking of my snow covered home...
