P.Eng?

[rfdnewby]

Or is the line merely stating that you cannot use your professional status to 'sign off' on something for which you are not trained?

[Winkle]

Or is the line merely stating that you cannot use your professional status to 'sign off' on something for which you are not trained?


This, right there.

[Winkle]

Most engineers understand that a lot of fields are fairly interdisciplinary, there are a lot of overlaps and most people realize this once they get out of school and join the work force and start working with engineers from other disciplines. The spirit of the regulations is supposed to understand this too. This is also why the PEO's disciplinary council is composed of engineers and why the field is self-regulated.

The thing is, engineers are supposed to know when they should or should not seal a design. If one decides to seal a design that they made while knowing they are not qualified to make that design, then yes, that can be construed as professional misconduct if they are caught and convicted of it. That's the risk they take. An engineer's stamp/seal shouldn't be taken lightly.

Also, there's really nothing within the regulations barring an engineer from expanding their field of knowledge and expertise to include more than one discipline, but that tends to be more rare as the industry and market prefers engineers who specialize and are experts in a handful of fields as opposed to engineers who are "jack of all trades but masters of none".

[Mark77]

Its a self-policing system somewhat. A commonly given example is that a Chemical or Electrical Engineer, for instance, will get the wise idea that they can use their P.Eng. stamp to stamp what appears to be a relatively routine foundation construction plan, brought to them by a friend or relative, to 'save' a few thousand dollars either on professional costs, or because the designer takes issue with the professional judgement of the professionals engaged in the past. Even though they have neither training in foundation design, nor have they ever worked in the field.

Wham, the City's building department gets the plans, sees the "John Doe, P.Eng. (Chemical)" stamp on the plans, and a PEO complaint is launched on two grounds: lack of permission to consult/lack of certificate of authorization, and working outside one's area of expertise (ie: unskilled practice).

This, obviously, is one of the most overt examples.

However, as the other posters point out, a lot of fields are either multidisciplinary, and/or are covered off by many fields. And some people have additional training. For example, I technically only have an engineering stamp for the Electrical area -- but I also have a Computer Science background. It certainly wouldn't be "unskilled practice" for me to stamp "software engineering" or "computer engineering" documents/reports if such were required. But I think there would be hell to pay if a "software engineer" started stamping electrical substation plans.

Of course, professional responsibility and professional liability applies to all practice of engineering -- so only a fool would practice and/or stamp documents/plans outside of his/her area of expertise. I personally don't know a bloody thing about foundation design, soil mechanics, or structural engineering -- why the heck would I risk my own financial future on something I don't have a clue about?


In other words, do Engineering Physics people have it best since the field of physics covers essentially EVERYTHING.


They might have it the best, but they might have it the worst because there is relatively little in "Engineering Physics" that is practical. They know all the physics in the world, but not a lot on the practical side. An EP can probably recite all of Maxwell's Equations, but with the standard EP training, they certainly aren't taught the difference between an induction motor and a synchronous motor. EP's typically face extreme uphill battles in finding employment in the more practical areas, with most ending up either in software, or in theoretical research areas. EP has probably performed worse than Electrical/Computer post-Nortel collapse in Canada for exactly this reason.

[Mark77]

I kinda disagree with the view that disciplinary actions in engineering are necessarily self-regulating to mean 'among peers' and that it then becomes ok and 'not as bad as it seems'. The moment it was written into provincial law and judgements enforceable by the courts following legal action, the engineering code of conduct is no longer a guideline, it becomes a legal regulation and wordings matter. I think they need to make it less ambiguous then.


If it makes it to the courts, then the incompetence becomes a question of fact, and not generally one of peer opinion. You're correct that a quasi-judicial regulator such as the PEO, is, essentially, in its disciplinary proceedings, an extension of the court, with judgements that are usually recognized by the courts.

Most people in the professions definitely do not want to practice outside of their area of competence. Most P.Eng.'s I know would just prefer to never bring their stamp out, even on documents they're required to stamp. Its basically a big bullseye for litigation.



If you have a really aggressive litigator out for blood, for something warranted or not, or for whatever reason they see fit (maybe they or a client have a grudge or a score to settle), they can probably sue an engineer for work they have done in the past simply because that engineer may have loosely worked on a field/application they were not classically trained in nor 'experienced' in. Again, such situations can happen a lot because fields are interdisciplinary and hardly any conventional engineering education with the only exception of engineering physics, is all encompassing. E.g. It will not be hard to find holder of mechanical engineering degrees in the field of automation, that work extensively with electronics and electromechanical devices, who during their education may not have taken a single course on robotics/automation. And since experience is vague and a term that will be elaborated on during legal proceedings after legal action, it is conceivable they can get in trouble for misconduct under line 72(2.h).


Since engineers (and the odd lay person) are the adjudicators of the question of competence under 72(2.h), that aggressive litigator has to make the case for practice outside the realm of one's skillset before a panel of engineers.

I've never heard of a judge substituting his/her judgement for that of a Professional Engineering disciplinary body when it comes to technical matters, or questions of this nature. Of course, judicial review has quashed convictions made by engineering disciplinary bodies, but generally on procedural matters such as jurisdiction, natural justice, etc., ie: defects in the process to come to judgement, not the actual judgements themselves.



Lets use an example: Since sometimes you may only have a few engineers on a multidisciplinary project. You think one engineer is a specialist in that field, while in reality, in court and legal proceedings it can actually be legally argued and legally produced that hes not actually an expert (lets use the mechanical engineer working in mechatronics example). So you all work to sign off on the entire project as a whole. Maybe you are a software engineer or chemical engineer on the project. Then the device fails and a client or the public prosecutor wants to sue. They find oh, actually as it turns out none of you engineers in this project have the legal professional authority to sign off on that part of the project. You merely took so and so's word that he is a specialist, and maybe he really is, but in legal terms during the discovery proceedings it was argued it actually isnt. Now what? You are all in the hook. As far as that is concerned, what it looks like from a legal perspective is a group of engineers signing off on something they were not experts in, and for that everyone in the project is responsible.

Certainly there would be the concept of negligence and product liability that arises in such. In which case, the plaintiffs generally would have bigger fish to fry than merely complaining to some engineering board that a few people weren't strictly practicing in the discipline they studied 20, 30, perhaps even 40 years ago.