Obligation-Conflict Resolution
Case 04-8 (2004) · Public Welfare—Client Action Following Engineers Services
Professional obligations conflict, and the board applies no fixed rule for which one wins.
Each resolution is recorded as three edges:
competesWith (the tension),
prevailsOver (the obligation the board allowed to win in this case), and
defeasibleUnder (the situation under which the yielding obligation gives way).
The same tension is then traced across comparable cases, where its resolution shifts with context.
Hover any obligation or state to see its definition; click to open it in OntServe.
How this case resolved it
Engineer A Safety Obligation Wetland Fill
prevails over
Engineer A Faithful Agent Limits Wetland
the two obligations are in tension (competesWith)
the yielding obligation gives way only under (defeasibleUnder):
- Engineer A Confirmed Environmental Risk
- Engineer A Faithful Agent Duty Conflict
Featured
Engineer A Observed Violation Disclosure
prevails over
Engineer A Confidentiality Limits Wetland Violation
the two obligations are in tension (competesWith)
the yielding obligation gives way only under (defeasibleUnder):
- Engineer A Wetland Fill Violation Discovery
Engineer A Wetland Confidentiality Limits
prevails over
Engineer A Faithful Agent Limits Wetland
the yielding obligation gives way only under (defeasibleUnder):
- Engineer A Confirmed Environmental Risk
- Engineer A Faithful Agent Duty Conflict
Open tensions recorded without a resolution:
Engineer A Bridge Field Notes Preservation vs Engineer A Bridge Speculative Finding Exclusion
What the board concluded
- Engineer A should contact the client and inquire about the actions the client has taken and point out the action is a violation of the law and that steps need to be take to remedy the violation or obtain a variance from the proper authorities.
Recorded violations:
Confidential Non-Disclosure Decision violates Engineer A Confidentiality Limits Wetland Violation
Confidential Non-Disclosure Decision violates Engineer A Safety Obligation Wetland Fill
How comparable cases resolved the same tension
A faithful-agent duty yields to a public-protection obligation. The yielding obligation ("Faithful Agent") recurs across cases; the obligation that overrides it and the context under which it yields differ case by case. This is the case-law move: not a single rule, but a family of context-indexed resolutions.
| Case | Obligation that prevailed | Yielding obligation | Context (defeasibleUnder) |
|---|---|---|---|
|
24-01
Balancing Client Directives and Public...
|
Engineer L Client Budget Pressure Refusal | Engineer L Faithful Agent Boundary | Engineer L Confirmed Risk Without Safeguards; Engineer L Resource Constrained Client |
| Engineer L Client Override Regulatory Report | Engineer L Faithful Agent Boundary | Engineer L Confirmed Risk Without Safeguards; Engineer L Resource Constrained Client | |
|
20-4
Public Health, Safety, and...
|
Engineer B Post-Override Regulatory Reporting | Engineer B Faithful Agent Boundary | MWC Override of Engineers A and B |
| Engineer A Post-Override Regulatory Reporting | Engineer A Faithful Agent Boundary | MWC Override of Engineers A and B | |
|
95-5
Failure To Include Information In...
|
Engineer B Expert Witness Neutrality | Engineer B Faithful Agent Boundary | Engineer B Adversarial Engagement; Engineer B Client Defense Bias |
| Engineer B Complete Technical Reporting | Engineer B Faithful Agent Boundary | Engineer B Adversarial Engagement; Engineer B Client Defense Bias |