Forensic Engineering: Risks of Performance-Based Engineering for Sustainability or Resilience

Professional engineers in the US may be found negligent and therefore liable for damages arising from failure to exercise a level of care, diligence, and skill exercised by other reputable practitioners in similar circumstances. If the professional engineer has accepted the obligation to design for sustainability or resilience, where those terms or performance levels are ill-defined or open to interpretation depending on assumptions or outcomes, the professional engineer may be accepting an extreme or uninsurable risk.

This paper describes the standard of care, which is the measure of a practitioner’s performance as it relates to professional negligence. It examines the relationship between the standard of care and design for sustainability or resilience. The paper addresses 1) a discussion of the sources of the practitioner’s responsibility to design for sustainability or resilience, 2) an explanation of the concept of the standard of care, and 3) the professional liability pitfalls inherent in that design effort. The subject may be unique to professional practice in societies where litigation is used to allocate responsibility for damages, but it may also be universally relevant for practitioners wishing to understand professional responsibilities for such designs.