Liability for harness tie off 3

[glass99]

A glazier has asked me to provide structural calculations for a concrete anchor bolt use to tie off his harnesses which he will use in multiple locations on a skyscraper during glass replacement. They do the replacement from the inside of the building, and the anchor bolt will hopefully never see load.

Is this a high liability assignment? Would I be named in the lawsuit if there was an accident unrelated to the anchor failing ? Or is this more like designing a catwalk for an industrial plant?

 

[Ron]

Yes.
Yes.
No.

 

[IRstuff]

And even more woe unto you if you're not licensed as a PE and an accident occurs.

TTFN
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[AELLC]

I don't think Ron's reply was brief enough.

 

[glass99]

I had vague sense that this would be high liability, but does anyone have any war stories about an engineer getting sucked into a situation like this?

I have a PE, btw.[/sup]

 

[AELLC]

No war stories, but this must be nothing compared to being the Struct EOR for any condo.

 

[glass99]

AELLC - interesting comparison to condos.

 

[AELLC]

I did incredibly scary stuff when I did struct engrg for offshore oil platforms, but condos and the lawyers that swirl around them is much scarier...

 

[glass99]

Since we are all numbers people, assign a dollar value to taking the responsibility for designing one safety harness related anchor bolt. Assume a 40 story office building built in the 80's in NYC. The glazier probably comes back once per year for the next 20 years to replace a couple of panels at a time.

My rule of thumb is that if anything happens, innocent parties have to spend $50k to extract themselves in legal fees and settlements. If its got a 1% chance of occurring, my risk premium is $500, which doesn't seem too bad.

If this were a condo, the chance of the lawsuit would be probably more like 20%.

 

[AELLC]

I also ask myself, am I running short on billable this month, should I take on a very risky job?

But never a condo.

 

[glass99]

You can and should do condos if they pay you for the risk you are taking, which does occur on occasion. Some of the NYC structural firms in the 2006 condo boom were making big money from condos. Partners were taking home 7 figure bonuses. Along side that, they laid off most of their staff in 2008, are probably paying 10% of their receivables in E+O insurance, and have in house counsel for the constant stream of legal action.

 

[AELLC]

Probably also a huge difference in concrete/steel vs wood construction.

The wood construction, including deterioration of any ltwt. conc. floor topping, is a ticking time bomb.

 

[glass99]

Are they building timber joists with concrete decks now? God forbid developers should do things properly.

 

[Ron]

glass99...that's the world I live in. Most of what I do is construction and structural forensics so I see problems. I see engineers get sued for a variety of things, mostly because they have an insurance policy to chase.

What you asked is a very high liability issue because its failure would result in a personal injury. When you're dealing with property damage, it's only money. When you're dealing with a person's life, it takes on a whole new meaning.

As for liability....your fee level has no relationship to the liability to which you'll be exposed. It doesn't make any difference if your fee is $1000 or $100,000....your exposure can be in the millions on either.

Exposure does not necessarily equate to liability. We are always exposed, but our true liability often depends on our diligence or lack thereof. When we write proposals and reports, the intent is to limit our exposure.....try not to get invited to the party....the one the lawyers are attending. If you have true liability, they'll find you anyway.

 

[glass99]

Ron: good point about it being personal injury as opposed to property damage.

There must be some level of fee that would cover the weighted risks involved. The risk is not infinite.

 

[AELLC]

@ glass:

Wood is very common here for condos, the low rise kind at least. Plywood alone may result in bouncy floors, and soft spots, even with 1-1/8". So the common practice is to top w/ 1.5" gypcrete or ltwt conc, then that is nightmare if it wasn't done right, years later.

 

[AELLC]

Any structure could kill anyone, especially during construction, so this OP didn't worry me extremely.

One example was the hotel under construction, spindly barely-adequate pipe column, steel beam, builder stupidly started placing Dycore only on one side of the beam, column wasn't braced, then a construction worker below was crushed to death.

 

[glass99]

AELLC - does the concrete not crack? Timber creeps unevenly based on load variations etc. For residential renovation work here in NYC you see 100 year old timber joists that have sagged by 3 inches over 20ft.

 

[AELLC]

It cracks, therin lies the problem. Oy Vey.

 

[AELLC]

In Santa Fe, I did tons of renov work. Opposite there. The timber becomes hader than concrete. Like the