Professional Negligence of Engineers Providing Seismic Retrofit Design Services

An engineer providing structural engineering design services for the seismic evaluation and rehabilitation of existing buildings and other structures may be subject to claims made for professional negligence if those facilities do not perform as expected. If professional negligence is proven, the engineer may be liable for costs caused by that negligence. For a professional negligence claim to be proven, the engineer must be shown to have failed to meet the “standard of care.” This paper presents the definition of the standard of care as determined by case law, and discusses the process used to determine the standard of care. It outlines instances or circumstances where and when an engineer may be seen as negligent in the engineering of seismic evaluation and rehabilitation of buildings and other structures, and how a practitioner may avoid or defeat such claims.