E – 1155 Ethics, Professionalism, and Disciplinary Actions: Case Studies

Codes of ethics for engineers typically describe standards for professional behavior. The enforcement of those ethical standards that are inscribed into law lies with licensing boards of state governments. In this course, ten case studies of actual enforcement actions by a state licensing board are presented. The cases have been selected to be representative of situations likely to exist in many states. Board procedures and the types of enforcement action available are shown by a variety of cases ranging from a geotechnical engineer who produced (within one hour and without visiting the site) a soils report, to an engineer who was unable to document his PDH’s during a board audit. The importance of being very careful about when to put “P.E.” after one’s name on a document also will become apparent.