Engineer A clearly has an ongoing duty to honor his obligations both to his former employer and the private client. Engineer A should be assigned other duties by the state remain isolated from the State's water rights case involving Engineer A's former employer and its client—and the state should recognize and respect Engineer A's ethical obligations in this matter.

Over the years, the NSPE Board of Ethical Review has considered a number of cases involving ethical concerns relating to an engineer’s involvement in adversarial proceedings. As the Board has noted on at least one previous occasion, one of the most common ethical issues that engineers face in their professional lives is conflicts of interest. At one point in the past, engineering codes of ethics, including the NSPE Code of Ethics for Engineers, specifically implored engineers to avoid all conflicts of interest. The basis for this position was that the engineer cannot serve two masters, and when faced with a conflict of interest, the engineer must in all cases take steps to remove him or herself from such conflicts. Among the concerns expressed by supporters of this position was that engineers, who were involved in conflict of interest situations, created a poor image for the engineering profession because the issue raised the appearance of impropriety. However, over time, the engineering profession came to the general conclusion that by the very nature of the engineer’s role in society, conflicts of interests were virtually an immutable fact of professional engineering practice and that it was generally impossible for the engineer to, in all cases, remove him or herself from such situations. As a result, codes were changed and engineers were implored to disclose all known or potential conflicts of interest to their employers or clients by promptly informing them of any business association, interest, or other circumstance that could influence or appear to influence their judgment or the quality of their services. In BER Case No. 98-4, the Board considered a situation involving Engineer A, who was retained by ABC Manufacturing for the purpose of reviewing documents to form an opinion in a patent litigation matter in an area of Engineer A’s expertise. Engineer A performed the requested services and was paid for her work by ABC Manufacturing. Several years later, Eng...

Engineer A worked for a private engineering company in the field of water rights. The firm was hired by a client to complete a water-rights analysis in which Engineer A participated. Engineer A, along with one other employee at the firm, stamped the final document. These types of analyses quantify water and provide terms and conditions for future use that must be approved by the local courts. Typically, the court process takes years to complete and, in short, it includes the following steps: Application (proposal) Engineering to support application Objections from the public/other water users Rebuttal of objector’s comments Mediation or trialEngineer A worked on the project through step No. 2 and resigned from the firm to work for the State, who is an objector in this specific analysis (the State is typically an objector in most cases).Engineer A feels that he can and should support the work he performed and which was included in the stamped report, but he is concerned about the remaining steps in the court process. In his current employment, he has been isolated from the State’s case in the matter, and his current position does not include opposing this or other cases.

What are Engineer A’s ethical obligations under the circumstances?