indemnifation
indemnifation
(OP)
I am currently working for a shop that is not registered to provide engineering services to public. and I am the only PE in the shop. and the employer does not carry any E&O policies and refuses to purchase one for me. I am debating if I should let the shop hire my LLC or me personally. below is an interesting thread I just read.
https://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=436139
here are some concerns I have if anyone can give me some advice.
1)if I work as an employee. a lot of times EOR would require the shop to have the shop drawings stamped by a PE. I am the person who is going to do it in that case. I have been shopping for an E&O policy for a while and I thought the policy should cover everything that the insured does when the policy is active. say I stamp something this year and ten years later when I do not pay the policy anymore and the project I stamped happens to take some bad actions. since I did the project when i had the policy the policy should cover me. but the agent told me that the policy only works when the claim is filed when I paying it. I have to pay the policy forever then which is kind of unreasonable. that makes having a policy almost infeasible. if i know i would not be able to carry it forever there is no point to pay it now.
2) as an employee if I am lucky to never seal any drawings. can the employer or the clients still sue me since I am the one who engineers the products which the employer has record of? I think I can get an indemnification from the employer which i learnt from the thread above. but somehow i still dont feel safe especially considering the employer has a tendency to not follow my engineering instruction. and the clients if they know I am the one who engineers it could still come to sue me personally i guess. you will never get sued if you just simply do not seal the documents as someone says in the thread? I doubt that.
3)if i let the shop hire my firm i think my firm can get a policy but still i have to carry that policy forever to get covered for whatever i ever did or do. that is kind of insane.
4) even the employer to purchase the policy but they can cancel anytime and i am not in control. I would rather purchase it myself and try to let the shop pay for it.
any good advice in terms of how to safely practice in my situation would be highly appreciated.
thanks in advance.
https://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=436139
here are some concerns I have if anyone can give me some advice.
1)if I work as an employee. a lot of times EOR would require the shop to have the shop drawings stamped by a PE. I am the person who is going to do it in that case. I have been shopping for an E&O policy for a while and I thought the policy should cover everything that the insured does when the policy is active. say I stamp something this year and ten years later when I do not pay the policy anymore and the project I stamped happens to take some bad actions. since I did the project when i had the policy the policy should cover me. but the agent told me that the policy only works when the claim is filed when I paying it. I have to pay the policy forever then which is kind of unreasonable. that makes having a policy almost infeasible. if i know i would not be able to carry it forever there is no point to pay it now.
2) as an employee if I am lucky to never seal any drawings. can the employer or the clients still sue me since I am the one who engineers the products which the employer has record of? I think I can get an indemnification from the employer which i learnt from the thread above. but somehow i still dont feel safe especially considering the employer has a tendency to not follow my engineering instruction. and the clients if they know I am the one who engineers it could still come to sue me personally i guess. you will never get sued if you just simply do not seal the documents as someone says in the thread? I doubt that.
3)if i let the shop hire my firm i think my firm can get a policy but still i have to carry that policy forever to get covered for whatever i ever did or do. that is kind of insane.
4) even the employer to purchase the policy but they can cancel anytime and i am not in control. I would rather purchase it myself and try to let the shop pay for it.
any good advice in terms of how to safely practice in my situation would be highly appreciated.
thanks in advance.
Talk To Other Members
RE: indemnifation
RE: indemnifation
RE: indemnifation
RE: indemnifation
As for insurance, there are "tail" coverage policies or riders that deal with that sort of thing:
https://blog.axisins.com/errors-and-omissions-what...
https://www.techinsurance.com/insurance-terms/tail...
TTFN (ta ta for now)
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RE: indemnifation
Cost of a lawyer - depends on where you are and how good they are. Some can be had for as cheap as $180/hr, some for $400+/hr. There are some online freelance outfits offering legal services now (think AirBnB, but lawyers instead of vacation rentals), so you may find cheaper advice there. Buyer beware, though.
Based on your comment about the EOR requiring shop drawings, I'm going to assume this is not for internal use. Therefore, your company probably needs to be registered with the state to provide professional engineering services. There are a handful of states that don't require it - Maine comes to mind - but most require the legal business entity to be registered as well as the individual professionals. If they aren't, then you technically can't do it as their employee. If they refuse to go that route, you need to refuse to do the work. It may mean finding another job - that sounds preferable to working for people who would try to bully you into doing work in manner that is ethically questionable at best and illegal at worst.
Talk to a lawyer specializing in construction law and professional practice regulations.
RE: indemnifation
Regardless, the repeating question is, even i do not need to stamp anything, can the client or employer go after me since i am the one who does the engineering. also as i said the employer or management might direct the installation not following the drawings just to save couple of bucks or for whatever reasons just because he she "feels" it will be OK although he or she does not understand it.
RE: indemnifation
Of course that doesn't mean your company shouldn't shield you from it. If they are making the profit from your work, they need to accept the risk. If they won't, they need to pay you the profit commensurate with the risk you're taking.
RE: indemnifation
- Fabricator is responsible for all engineering related to their product.
- No mention of engineering at all in the project documents.
- All work must be stamped by a registered engineer in the State of xxx.
- Fabricator to design all connections.
- Fabricator to address connections. (my personal favorite)
Be careful about using the word engineer versus design. Slight difference in expectations. If you are not stamping it or providing engineering documentation, I would refer to myself as the designer. In that same conversation or document, I would not refer to myself as a engineer. Once I say I engineered it, I get closer to court.RE: indemnifation
RE: indemnifation
What to do when you may be held legally responsible while someone else is actually controlling most of the dynamic? When things go bad, watch how much weaseling the company does in response.