F-11: Conflict of Interest in Building Inspection

 Statement of the Case: Engineer A is the only civil engineer in a small town in a remote area of
Canada; the other engineers in the area are all mining engineers. Engineer A has a broad
background, including sewer and water, roads, bridges, structural design, and building
construction and inspection. His wife owns four commercial buildings in the downtown area. On
a sunny day last summer, a major earthquake shook the town and caused widespread damage.
Although there were no deaths, several people were injured, and several of the largest and oldest
commercial buildings suffered significant cracking and settlement. Many buildings were built of

unreinforced masonry, and a few had obvious cracks. Immediate structural inspection was

essential before authorities could allow people to re-enter the buildings to live and work.

The Town Administrator asked Engineer A to undertake a contract for immediate structural

inspection of the damaged buildings. Engineer A declined. He explained that his wife owned

four of the buildings requiring inspection, and it would be a clear conflict of interest if he were to

inspect his wife’s property. The Town Engineer asked whether Engineer A would skip her

property and just inspect the buildings owned by others. Engineer A again declined, saying that

if he condemned any of the buildings, he would still have a perceived conflict of interest, since

his wife was in competition with other owners for tenants. Moreover, in this crisis he should

assist his wife to rehabilitate her buildings and could not place her behind other owners in a

similar situation.

The Town Administrator stressed the emergency nature of the situation. He pointed out that

outside help was unavailable because of poor road conditions and also because other engineers

were busy, dealing with other communities that were similarly affected.

Question: Does Engineer A have a conflict of interest? What should he do?

Outcome: Engineer A agreed to do the work and, indeed, found he had to condemn two of his

wife’s buildings and five others. An aftershock that occurred a few days later damaged all seven

of these buildings, thus confirming his judgments.

Authors’ Comments: Engineer A behaved correctly and honourably by trying to avoid an

assignment that would put him into a conflict of interest; however, when the Town Administrator

advised him that other engineers were unavailable during a time of crisis, Engineer A put the

public welfare first, as required by every Code of Ethics. Having disclosed his conflict of

interest, he undertook the work.

Engineers and geoscientists can usually avoid a conflict of interest simply by refusing an

assignment or by withdrawing if a conflict of interest arises. In this case, Engineer A could not

avoid the conflict of interest, but promptly disclosed it. When a conflict of interest is created by unavoidable circumstances, disclosing it is usually an adequate action on the part of the

professional. By disclosing an unavoidable conflict of interest, the engineer or geoscientist

invites scrutiny, so that others can satisfy themselves that the work is proceeding objectively and

honestly.