Christian Joe B.

Quimio Engineering Values and Ethics

IE5A Case 1

Responsibility for Public Safety and the Obligation of Client Confidentiality

a. If you were Duchane, what should you do? Should you report the information to
the attorney? To owner? To tenants?

If I were the engineer, I would immediately report what I have discovered about the
serious structural problems in the building to the attorney of the owner who hired me.
Since the obligation of an engineer is to protect the public health and safety has long been
acknowledged by the Code of Ethics and by the Board of Ethical Review. This
responsibility rests with the recognition that engineers with their education, training and
experience possess a level of knowledge and understanding concerning technical
matters which is superior to that of the lay public. It also is rooted in the implicit fact that
as individuals who are granted a license by the state to practice, engineers have a duty
to engage in practice which is consistent with the interests of the state and its citizenry.

And by doing so, the attorney could inform the owner of the building so that they
are able to start working on the plan of action on how they will undergo on repairing the
building.

b. What should you do now?

It appears that I am now aware of the imminent danger to the structure. Therefore,
I have an obligation to make absolutely certain that the tenants and public authorities
were made immediately aware of the dangers that existed. Yes my client was the attorney
and technically I had an obligation not to reveal facts, data or other information in a
professional capacity without the prior consent of the attorney. However, there were valid
reasons why I should have revealed the information directly to the tenants and public
authorities.

But it is clear that there may be facts and circumstances in which the ethical
obligation of engineers in protecting the public health and safety conflict with the ethical
obligation of engineers to maintain the right of confidentiality in data and other information
obtained on behalf of a client. While we recognize that this conflict is a natural tension
which exists within the Code, we think that under the facts of this case, there were
reasonable alternatives available for me which could assist me in averting an ethical
conflict.

c. Is there a way to resolve the problem without compromising either Duchane’s

professional responsibility for the public safety or his obligation to preserve client
confidentiality?

The best way to resolve the problem without compromising both Duchane’s
professional responsibility and obligation to preserve client confidentiality is for the owner
to sponsor the repair of the building immediately and to apologize to the tenants of the
building for the inconvenience that it could give to them. And if both parties of the owner
and the tenants would talk and settle the matter in a nice way there is no such problem
that would occur.

d. How do an engineer’s professional obligations to preserve client confidentiality

differ from those of a lawyer?

The engineers and lawyers client confidentiality doesn’t differ since they both have the
Codes that they are following in their profession. What only makes it different is the
organization who created the codes that they are following and they need to follow. For
the engineers we have NSPE (National Society of Professional Engineers) while for the
lawyers they have ABA (American Bar Association).

References and Course Readings:

 https://paulsssim.weebly.com/case-study.html
 https://www.onlineethics.org/Resources/Cases/NSPEcases.aspx#safety
 https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~bmclaren/ethics/caseframes/90-5.html