F-14: Outdated Practice

 Statement of the Case: Engineer A had been practising engineering for over two decades; but
for the past 10 years, she has been in a management position: supervising traffic flow
measurements and highway planning for the provincial government. Recently, she left the
government job to enter private practice, and one of her first contracts was to design a structure
that had to satisfy the National Building Code.

Although Engineer A had extensive experience with this type of structure prior to entering government service, she had not designed such structures for more than10 years. She was aware that there had been some changes to the Building Code in recent years, but she was very familiar with the older code, and she argued that the old code was likely to be over-conservative.

To be certain that the structure was safe, The client submitted the drawings to the municipality for approval. Upon inspection, the municipal engineer immediately recognized that the wording and style indicated that the engineer had followed the older building code. Moreover, some load data required by the more recent building code was missing. The municipal engineer rejected the drawings. The client complained to the provincial Association.

Question: Should the Association discipline Engineer A for professional misconduct?

Outcome: Upon investigation of the client’s complaint, the Association concluded that the

design was safe, but the beam and column cross-sections were much larger than required under

the current building code. The structure would therefore be more expensive for the client to

construct than it should have been. The Association reprimanded Engineer A for neglecting to

keep herself up-to-date in her field of practice.

Authors’ Comments: Engineers and geoscientists have an obligation to maintain their

competence in their fields of practice. Every provincial or territorial Act requires continuing

competence (although this clause may be in the regulations or Code of Ethics). Continuing

competence means keeping up-to-date on codes, standards, and analysis techniques.

The Codes of Ethics also require professionals to be realistic about evaluating their own abilities and not gambling at the client’s expense. 

Engineers and geoscientists can keep current by attending refresher courses and seminars, attending conferences of engineering societies, reading journals, and so forth. In fact, most provincial Associations now have compulsory requirements for providing evidence of continued competence.

An engineer or geoscientist need not be an expert in every phase of a proposed project before

accepting it, but must become competent through study or research in a reasonable time. If this is not possible, then a colleague or consultant must be hired. An engineer or geoscientist must not put a client’s project at risk by negligence or incompetence.