Liability and Quality Control Impacts of Defining Scope of Services

The Scope of Services of engineering contracts can have important liability and quality control implications. Attempts to avoid liability frequently affect quality control adversely; and sometimes they actually increase liability exposure. Engineers have attempted to limit their responsibility during shop drawing review by wording of the review stamp, but most court cases have shown this approach to be ineffectual and to cause a false sense of security. Similarly, attempts have been made to avoid engaging other professionals as subcontractors and have them directly engaged by the client to limit the prime engineer's responsibility for their work. This entails the risk that lesser quality services may be obtained than if the prime engineer were responsible for the engagement of the subcontract professional. The Scope of Services must be carefully written so that the engineer is not found liable for items not normally within his responsibility. Finally, the engineering fee must be adequate for the engineer to devote the time and attention to careful design and checking.