Transcript Tort Law: Concurrent Tortfeasors

Tort Law:
Concurrent Tortfeasors
Douglas Wilhelm Harder, M.Math. LEL
Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering
University of Waterloo
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
ece.uwaterloo.ca
[email protected]
© 2013 by Douglas Wilhelm Harder. Some rights reserved.
Vicarious Liability
Outline
An introduction to the engineering profession, including:
– Standards and safety
– Law: Charter of Rights and Freedoms, contracts, torts, negligent
malpractice, forms of carrying on business
– Intellectual property (patents, trade marks, copyrights and
industrial designs)
– Professional practice
• Professional Engineers Act
• Professional misconduct and sexual harassment
– Alternative dispute resolution
– Labour Relations and Employment Law
– Environmental Law
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Concurrent Tortfeasors
It is possible for more than one party to breach a duty of
care which results in an injury
– In this case, the damages would be covered by all parties
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Concurrent Tortfeasors
Consider the case of Corporation of District of Surry v
Carrol-Hatch et al., 1979
– In designing a Police Station, the architect and engineers made
two shallow test pits
– The engineers recommended deep soil tests
– This was rejected by the architect and the engineers submitted
their report based on an examination of the shallow pits
– Once the building was complete, settlement require significant
additional structural changes
– Deep soil tests would have revealed the issues affecting the
building
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Concurrent Tortfeasors
In Corporation of District of Surry v Carrol-Hatch et al.,
1979, the court found
– The owner was relying on the professional judgment of both the
architect and the engineers and this established a duty of care
– The engineers could not remove that duty of care by accepting
the architect’s decision when they did know or should have
known better
– The court allocated fault as follows:
The architect:
60 %
The engineers:
40 %
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Professional Misconduct
Can a professional engineer abrogate responsibility to
another party?
72(2)(f) For the purposes of the Act and this Regulation,
“professional misconduct” means, failure of a practitioner to
present clearly to the practitioner's employer the consequences
to be expected from a deviation proposed in work, if the
professional engineering judgment of the practitioner is overruled
by non-technical authority in cases where the practitioner is
responsible for the technical adequacy of professional
engineering work.
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References
[1]
[2]
[3]
D.L. Marston, Law for Professional Engineers, 4th Ed., McGraw Hill, 2008.
Julie Vale, ECE 290 Course Notes, 2011.
Wikipedia, http://www.wikipedia.org/
These course slides are provided for the ECE 290 class. The material in it reflects
Douglas Harder’s best judgment in light of the information available to him at the
time of preparation. Any reliance on these course slides by any party for any other
purpose are the responsibility of such parties. Douglas W. Harder accepts no
responsibility for damages, if any, suffered by any party as a result of decisions
made or actions based on these course slides for any other purpose than that for
which it was intended.
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