Step 4: Review

Hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public.

If engineers' judgment is overruled under circumstances that endanger life or property, they shall notify their employer or client and such other authority as may be appropriate.

Engineers shall not reveal facts, data, or information without the prior consent of the client or employer except as authorized or required by law or this Code.

Engineers shall not aid or abet the unlawful practice of engineering by a person or firm.

Engineers shall act for each employer or client as faithful agents or trustees.

Engineers shall not disclose, without consent, confidential information concerning the business affairs or technical processes of any present or former client or employer, or public body on which they serve.

Cited to show the Board's prior interpretation of Sections II.4 and III.4 in the context of employed engineers maintaining employer confidences.

Cited as a prior case interpreting Section III.4 in the context of private practice client relationships, but distinguished because no confidential information was actually transmitted by the client to the engineer in that case.

Cited among cases where the Board previously interpreted Section II.1.c but did not outline the scope of that Code section.

Cited among cases where the Board previously interpreted Section II.1.c but did not outline the scope of that Code section.

Cited as an analogous precedent where an engineer unethically acceded to a client's wishes despite safety concerns instead of insisting on proper safety measures or refusing to continue work; the Board applies this reasoning to conclude Engineer A similarly should have taken further action.

It was unethical for Engineer A not to report the safety violations to the appropriate public authorities.

The Board's finding that Engineer A acted unethically in not reporting the violations does not turn on his lack of electrical or mechanical licensure; the paramount duty to public safety under Section I.1 attaches to any engineer who becomes aware of a genuine safety risk, regardless of whether that risk falls within his own discipline. Engineer A's competency limitations may have precluded him from independently verifying or remediating the electrical and mechanical deficiencies, but they did not excuse him from the separate and more basic obligation to ensure that qualified authorities were notified once he recognized, in his own professional judgment, that occupants faced a risk of injury.

The Board's conclusion implicitly treats the confidentiality agreement as incapable of overriding the paramountcy clause, which suggests that any pre-engagement confidentiality arrangement failing to carve out safety disclosures is itself ethically deficient at the point it was formed. Engineer A and the client arguably should have anticipated, at the outset of a structural investigation of an occupied building, that safety-relevant information might surface, and the agreement should have been structured to permit disclosure to public authorities in such circumstances. The absence of such a carve-out does not, however, relieve Engineer A of his independent duty once the conflict actually arose.

Merely noting the deficiencies briefly within a confidential report that only the client would see did not discharge Engineer A's duty, because that disclosure was functionally equivalent to no disclosure at all from the standpoint of the building occupants and public authorities who lacked access to the report. The Board's reasoning implies a threshold distinction between passive internal documentation and affirmative external notification: only the latter satisfies the paramountcy obligation once a real risk of occupant injury has been identified, regardless of the engineer's good-faith warning to the client.

Regarding Q101, Engineer A's lack of licensure in electrical or mechanical engineering did not excuse him from a competency-based obligation to advise the client to retain qualified specialists. Recognizing a genuine risk of occupant injury, even outside one's own discipline, triggers a responsibility to ensure the matter is properly evaluated by someone with the requisite expertise, not merely to note it and move on.

On Q102, a brief mention of the deficiencies buried within a confidential structural report does not satisfy Engineer A's duty once he recognized a real risk of injury to occupants. Such limited disclosure functions more as a liability shield for Engineer A than as a meaningful safeguard for the public, since the report's confidentiality ensured the information would never reach those capable of acting on it.

In response to Q103, Engineer A owed an independent duty to the building occupants notwithstanding their absence from the confidentiality agreement. The Code's paramountcy clause establishes that the engineer's obligation to protect public safety exists independently of, and can override, contractual privity between engineer and client, precisely because third parties like occupants cannot protect themselves through that contractual relationship.

Addressing Q201, the tension between public welfare and confidentiality is not diminished merely because the confided information falls outside Engineer A's own area of expertise. The paramountcy of public safety under the Code attaches to any engineer who becomes aware of a genuine risk to life or property, regardless of whether the specific defect lies within their licensed discipline, because the ethical duty derives from awareness and capacity to act, not from subject-matter authorship.

Regarding Q202, Engineer A's loyalty as a faithful agent to the client is fundamentally subordinate to the Code's mandate to hold paramount the safety and welfare of the public. When the client's explicit no-remediation stance created a foreseeable risk to occupants, faithful agency could not ethically extend to silence before third-party authorities; the Code does not permit client loyalty to be exercised in a manner that knowingly endangers others.

On Q301, from a deontological standpoint Engineer A failed his duty under Section I.1 by treating the confidentiality agreement as if it could override an unconditional obligation to protect public safety. A strict deontological reading of the Code treats the paramountcy clause as a threshold rule that trumps contractual promises once a genuine safety risk is recognized, meaning Engineer A's prioritization of confidentiality was a duty failure regardless of the eventual outcome for occupants.

In response to Q303, Engineer A's act of warning the client privately, while allowing the confidentiality agreement to foreclose further protective action, reflects only partial professional integrity. True integrity would have required Engineer A to escalate the matter to appropriate authorities once the client made clear no remedial action would be taken, rather than considering his ethical obligation discharged by an internal warning that occupants would never learn of.

Concerning Q401, even if Engineer A had been licensed in electrical and mechanical engineering, the Board's conclusion would likely remain unchanged, since the ethical violation stemmed not from a lack of technical competence to independently verify the deficiencies but from the failure to report a recognized safety risk to appropriate authorities once it was confided and understood.

Regarding Q403, even absent a confidentiality agreement, the underlying safety-versus-loyalty conflict would still exist because Engineer A's duty to report arises from the paramountcy of public welfare rather than from the specific contractual confidentiality term; removing the agreement would eliminate one competing obligation but would not by itself have justified Engineer A's original nondisclosure, since the safety duty operates independently of any confidentiality clause.

The case establishes a clear hierarchy in which Public Welfare Paramount over Confidentiality trumps both Confidentiality in Building Report and Confidentiality in As-Is Sale Investigation once an engineer becomes aware of a genuine risk of occupant injury. Engineer A's confidentiality obligations were not eliminated but were subordinated: he could still honor the narrow contractual duty not to publicize the structural report's contents, yet he was independently obligated under I.1. to notify public authorities of the code violations. The Board's conclusion shows that Confidentiality in Building Report and Confidentiality in As-Is Sale Investigation function as defeasible client-protective principles that yield when public safety is implicated, rather than as absolute contractual bars to disclosure.

Loyalty as Faithful Agent to Client and Public Welfare of Building Occupants were placed in direct conflict by the client's explicit as-is, no-remediation stance, and the Board resolved this conflict entirely in favor of the occupants' welfare rather than seeking a compromise that preserved client loyalty. This suggests that faithful-agent duties under II.4. are conditioned on the client's conduct remaining within lawful and safe bounds; once a client signals an intent to knowingly leave code violations unaddressed and transfer risk to unwitting third parties (the occupants and possibly the buyer), the agent relationship no longer commands deference on the disclosure question.

The case demonstrates that principle prioritization does not depend on the engineer's disciplinary scope of expertise: even though the electrical and mechanical deficiencies fell outside Engineer A's structural competency, the paramount safety obligation attached the moment he recognized a risk of injury, independent of whether he was qualified to remediate or fully evaluate the underlying technical issues. This indicates that the duty to report under I.1. is triggered by awareness of risk, not by professional jurisdiction over the specific system at issue, which somewhat decouples the paramountcy principle from the competency-based principles that might otherwise limit an engineer's sphere of obligation.

Was it ethical for Engineer A not to report the safety violations to the appropriate public authorities?

Since Engineer A is not an electrical or mechanical engineer, did he have a competency-based obligation to recommend that the client retain qualified specialists to further evaluate and address the deficiencies, rather than merely noting them in his structural report?

Does merely mentioning the confided deficiencies briefly in a confidential report, without further action, satisfy or fall short of Engineer A's duty once he recognized a genuine risk of occupant injury?

What obligations, if any, does Engineer A have toward the building occupants themselves, who are third parties not privy to the confidentiality agreement between Engineer A and the client?

Should the pre-existing agreement to keep the structural report confidential have anticipated and carved out an exception for safety-related disclosures discovered during the engagement, and does the absence of such a carve-out itself raise an ethical problem in how the engagement was structured?

How should Public Welfare Paramount over Confidentiality be balanced against Confidentiality in Building Report and Confidentiality in As-Is Sale Investigation when the confided information concerns systems outside Engineer A's own area of expertise?

Does Loyalty as Faithful Agent to Client conflict with Public Welfare of Building Occupants when the client explicitly states an intention to take no remedial action before an as-is sale?

In cases where confidentiality obligations and public safety obligations directly conflict, does the Code's paramountcy clause always resolve the tension in favor of disclosure, or are there limits based on scope of engagement and the engineer's discipline?

From a deontological perspective, did Engineer A fulfill his duty to hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public when he prioritized the confidentiality agreement over reporting known code violations?

Did the outcome for the building occupants justify Engineer A's decision to withhold the safety violations from the appropriate authorities, given that the deficiencies posed a recognized risk of injury?

Did Engineer A act with professional integrity when he informed the client of the injury risk but nonetheless allowed the confidentiality agreement to override any further action to protect the occupants?

If Engineer A had been licensed as an electrical or mechanical engineer rather than solely a structural engineer, would the Board still have concluded that he had no independent duty to report the code violations to the appropriate authorities?

If the client had agreed to remediate the electrical and mechanical deficiencies before sale rather than insisting on an as-is sale with no remedial action, would the Board still have found Engineer A's nondisclosure to authorities unethical?

If the structural report had not been subject to a confidentiality agreement between Engineer A and the client, would the Board's conclusion that nondisclosure was unethical need to be reconsidered as a distinct confidentiality-versus-safety issue?

Because Safety Risk Recognition arose directly from confidential information and threatens public welfare, Engineer A's warning to the client is guided by the paramount duty to protect public safety even though it creates tension with the confidentiality obligations governing the same engagement, making it a necessary but insufficient first step toward discharging that duty.

Accepting the confidential engagement sets in motion the entire causal chain, from the investigation to the eventual discovery of a safety risk, so fulfilling Faithfulness to the Client here establishes the very obligation that later collides with public safety duties once the risk is uncovered.

The investigation fulfills Faithfulness to the Client by producing the Structural Soundness Finding, but this same act of diligence is what causally generates the safety-relevant knowledge that later obligates disclosure beyond the client relationship.

Limited Report Disclosure fulfills Confidentiality of Client Information by controlling what information reaches outside parties, but because it stems from the same causal branch that produced the safety risk, this limitation on disclosure foreshadows the deeper conflict resolved improperly in Nondisclosure to Authorities.

Nondisclosure to Authorities fulfills Confidentiality of Client Information yet violates the Paramount Public Safety principle and the Duty to Notify, and because this choice directly causes Continued Client Service instead of remediation or warning to endangered parties, it represents the critical point where prioritizing client faithfulness over public welfare produces an unresolved public safety hazard.

Because A1 is the direct downstream result of Engineer A's decision not to disclose the building's safety risk to authorities, continuing to serve the client under the guise of faithfulness to the client effectively perpetuates a public safety risk rather than resolving it, showing that loyalty to a client cannot by itself justify inaction when it flows causally from suppressed critical safety information.

The question emerged because Engineer A's contractual obligation to the client conflicts with the professional obligation to protect the public once safety violations were discovered, and the Code offers no bright line for resolving that conflict in this case.

The question arises because Engineer A Injury Risk Recognition extended beyond his professional competency boundary as defined by Engineer A Discipline Boundary Recognition, creating ambiguity about whether a competency-based duty to ensure proper specialist evaluation exists independent of his contracted structural scope.

The question emerges because Engineer A took a minimal, passive step (noting deficiencies in the confidential report) rather than an affirmative one (notifying authorities), leaving open whether this half-measure discharges his ethical duty or merely masks a violation of the paramount safety obligation.

This question arises because building occupants sit outside the confidentiality agreement yet are the very people exposed to harm from the withheld information, creating a structural gap between who the obligation is owed to and who bears the consequences.

The question arises because the engagement's contractual structure (Confidential Structural Report Term) was set before the code violations were found, exposing a gap between contract drafting norms and the profession's paramount safety obligation, and prompting scrutiny of whether the omission of a safety exception is itself an ethical failure in engagement design.

The question emerged because a structural inspection engaged under confidentiality terms revealed non-structural code violations threatening occupant safety, forcing a conflict between contractual loyalty to the client and the paramount duty to protect the public, complicated by the deficiency falling outside Engineer A's own discipline.

The question emerged because a structural inspection performed under a confidentiality agreement uncovered safety deficiencies that the client refused to fix before an as-is sale, forcing a choice between two legitimate but conflicting professional obligations.

The question emerged because the Code's paramountcy clause and confidentiality clause both plausibly govern the same disclosed information, and prior BER cases (82-2, 85-4, 87-2) show the Board has not settled whether disclosure is unconditionally mandated or bounded by the engineer's specific discipline and contractual scope.

The question arises because Engineer A's dual obligations, contractual confidentiality and professional duty to the public, point to opposite conclusions given the same set of discovered facts, creating genuine interpretive uncertainty resolved only by precedent cases like BER 61-8, 82-2, 84-5, 85-4, and 87-2.

This question emerged because the actual outcome, no reported injuries to occupants, seems to retroactively excuse a nondisclosure decision that was made without knowing that outcome, forcing a reconsideration of whether ethical justification should be judged by the decision process or by the resulting consequences.

The question arises because Engineer A satisfied one obligation (informing the client) while leaving another (protecting occupants) unresolved, creating ambiguity about whether partial compliance with competing duties constitutes integrity.

The question arises because the Board's original ruling relied on Engineer A's limited structural licensure and scope to excuse him from reporting duties, prompting speculation about whether broader licensure would shift the warrant from scope-limited confidentiality to cross-disciplinary safety responsibility.

The question arises because the Board's original finding hinged on the client's refusal to fix the deficiencies, and altering that fact tests whether the ethical violation stemmed from nondisclosure itself or from nondisclosure combined with unremediated danger.

The question arises because the Board's original judgment was reached in a context where confidentiality was contractually established, so removing that fact tests whether the ethical conclusion depended on the agreement itself or on the underlying safety obligation that would exist independent of any contract.

Given that Engineer A became aware of code violations posing a real injury risk to occupants and the client refused remediation before an as-is sale, the Board concluded that his failure to notify public authorities was unethical because the Code's paramountcy clause overrides confidentiality once such a risk is recognized.

Because Engineer A personally recognized, through his own inspection, a risk of injury from electrical and mechanical deficiencies, the Board reasoned that this recognition alone triggered the paramount notification duty, even though verifying or fixing those deficiencies was outside his licensed competence.

Since the confidentiality agreement was formed at the outset of a structural investigation of an occupied building without anticipating that safety-relevant information might surface, the Board reasoned the agreement itself should have included a disclosure carve-out, though this formation defect did not excuse Engineer A from his individual duty once the conflict actually arose.

Because the confidential report reached only the client and not the occupants or authorities exposed to the risk, the Board concluded that briefly noting the deficiencies there was functionally equivalent to no disclosure at all, and thus insufficient once a genuine injury risk had been identified.

Given that Engineer A recognized a genuine risk of occupant injury from electrical and mechanical deficiencies despite lacking licensure in those fields, the Board concluded he was obligated to advise the client to retain qualified specialists rather than simply recording the deficiencies in his structural report.

Given that Engineer A recognized a real injury risk but confined his disclosure to a confidential report inaccessible to anyone who could act on it, the board concluded this amounted to self-protective compliance rather than a meaningful safeguard, so it did not satisfy his duty.

Because the occupants had no seat at the confidentiality agreement and no other way to learn of or act on the risk, the board concluded Engineer A owed them an independent duty grounded in the Code's paramountcy clause rather than in any contractual relationship.

Even though the electrical and mechanical deficiencies fell outside Engineer A's structural expertise, the board reasoned that because he became aware of a genuine risk, the paramountcy duty attached to him just as it would to any engineer with that awareness and capacity.

Because the client's explicit no-remediation stance made harm to occupants foreseeable, the board concluded that faithful agency could not justify Engineer A's silence, since client loyalty cannot ethically extend to knowingly endangering third parties.

Applying a strict deontological lens, the board concluded that once Engineer A recognized a genuine risk, his choice to let the confidentiality agreement override reporting was a duty failure under Section I.1, regardless of how things ultimately turned out for the occupants.

Given that Engineer A warned the client privately but the client confirmed no remedial action would follow, the board concluded that stopping at the internal warning left occupants unknowingly at risk, so only partial integrity was achieved and escalation to authorities was ethically required.

Because Engineer A already understood the deficiencies as a genuine injury risk even without electrical or mechanical licensure, the board reasoned that adding such licensure would not have changed the outcome, since the ethical failure was nondisclosure of a known risk rather than an inability to assess it.

Even hypothesizing away the confidentiality agreement, the board reasoned that the underlying safety-versus-loyalty tension would persist because Engineer A's duty to report rests on the paramountcy of public welfare, so the absence of a confidentiality term would remove one competing obligation but not excuse the original failure to disclose.

Because Engineer A learned of code violations creating a genuine injury risk to occupants while under confidentiality obligations, the board concluded that public welfare paramountcy subordinates but does not eliminate those confidentiality duties, permitting narrow nonpublication while mandating notification to public authorities.

Given the client's explicit no-remediation, as-is stance, the board concluded that faithful-agent loyalty no longer commanded deference on the disclosure question, because the client's conduct threatened to leave occupants unknowingly exposed to code violations, resolving the conflict entirely in favor of public welfare.

Given that Engineer A recognized a risk of injury from electrical and mechanical deficiencies despite lacking expertise in those disciplines, the board concluded that his paramount safety obligation under I.1. still attached, reasoning that the duty to report is triggered by risk-awareness rather than by professional jurisdiction over the specific technical system at issue.

Should Engineer A report the electrical and mechanical code violations to the appropriate public authorities, or confine his response to warning the client under the confidentiality agreement?

Should Engineer A recommend that the client retain qualified electrical and mechanical specialists to evaluate the deficiencies, or merely note the deficiencies within his own structural report and take no further action?

Should Engineer A have negotiated a safety-disclosure carve-out into the confidentiality agreement before accepting the engagement, or accepted the client's standard confidentiality terms without modification?

Should Engineer A report the electrical and mechanical safety violations to the appropriate public authorities, or honor the confidentiality agreement with the client and limit disclosure to the private structural report?

Should Engineer A recommend that the client retain qualified electrical and mechanical specialists to evaluate the deficiencies he observed, or is it sufficient to note the deficiencies briefly within his structural report given his engagement was limited to structural matters?