Pressuring an Engineer to Seal Something

I guess the type of pressure applied would matter here.

"Aw, c'mon Bill! Just stamp it, will ya?"

"Bill, if you don't stamp it, you're fired."

Is coercion considered a duress crime wherever you are at?

This needs to be kicked upstairs to CR5, the lawyers' forum.

However, far enough down the road, it may be called subornation of perjury.

Lawyer up....

http://www.avvo.com/free-legal-advice

http://www.freeadvice.com/

http://www.lawguru.com/

Being a Professional Engineer brings benefits but along with those benefits, certain responsibilities, some moral and some legal.

Do consult a lawyer, you need to know if the form of encouragement is simply persuasion or illegal coercion.

You may be under an obligation to the state board that controls engineering professionals.

You may be able to discuss hypothetical cases with the state board officials or receive from them, case studies of similar situations.

I know I would refuse, but only after agonizing arguments with myself about responsibilities to my family and the risk of losing the job or, at the very least, getting my HR file marked Non-Cooperative.

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I don't know about the pressuring part, but if the person gives in, and seals the document, (knowing that it's false), it's called fraud...which is a crime.

PS- Saying that they made you do it, probably won't cut it in court.

The engineer may lose his job by not sealing, but if he does it, he's looking at losing his entire career, his reputation as a professional, possible civil and criminal penalties, and he will be finished. If caught, the bigshots that are doing the pressuring, will point directly at the guy that sealed the fraudulent documents. That's a promise.

Sort of a similar story:

I worked for a guy years ago, (the owner of a pretty successful company), that had his own theft ring going.

I had heard rumors, but found out first hand when he asked me to stand lookout while he loaded up pickup trucks full of mini refrigerators, (from a military base), covered them with tarps, and drove away with them.

I asked him if he was out of his f$%&#g mind. Well, everybody knew I wasn't going to play ball, so I found another job and quit within a week.

Ok, I admit it, the first thing I thought about was using engineers as packing in large stuffing boxes (as used in large ships, for instance). If there is nothing around better suited, then I guess it is OK. But if you think a dry stuffing box is noisy -- just wait til you stuff some engineers in there!

I am impressed by the maturity of others.

They'd use engineers for that? There's lawyers on large ships, too.

Speaking from a technical point of view the lawyers are too 'wishy-washy'. The seepage would be extreme! Uptight engineers would be much more suitable.

I know if people that have tried it.

The P.E. integrity won't let that happen.... If it does, his stamp should be revoked.

and he'd suffer any consequences because of it.

Is that a double false? Would a false portray of something that is false not be a clear attest for the good?

Anyway I think common sense, even so its not a law, is against it. There might be a law for it to protect people from being pushed into something, which they cannot be coerced to. Where are you? There is lawless places on this world!

Professional Engineers have a mind of their own and should know best when to seal a statement.

Otherwise use rubber seals . . .

I would be surprised to find it impossible that a court or other legal authority could never seal any engineer's report. In these few circumstances, sealing such a document would be compulsory and not a pressure. My point is that the judge or other legal authority does the sealing of the report, the engineer just generates the report that contains the engineer's analysis. The engineer does not seal anything.

At the same time, depending on who contracted for the engineer's report there may not be a compulsion to publish the report to the public.

The OP provides such a cryptic, convoluted question that I'm not sure if either of my comments are relevant.

I'm just guessing here too, but it looks to me like engineers do the actual sealing.

Personally, I wouldn't stamp anything that was fraudulent. I might be a lot of things, but dishonest isn't one of them...pressure or not.

http://www.engineerseals.com/

Fred, I read the OP thusly:

Professional Engineers, Architects, and Surveyors are governed by state boards and are required to have seals with their names and registration numbers on them. They are required to seal and sign their product, the specifications and drawings, etc. when they issue them.

The OP is a Professional Engineer whose bosses have demanded that he seal and sign a report saying that a situation does meet code, even though he has examined that situation and found that it does not meet code.

Dilbert said that it takes years of training to be an engineer but it takes no training at all to be an engineer's boss.

'...would be surprised ....to find.... impossible that ...... could never.....'

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Thinking of dealing with attorneys does that to me too.

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On a not so off topic comment, there was a recent study that showed attorneys never get hemroids. It turns out, they are all perfect a55holes.

Don't you have a PE board near you? It should be brought up to them. We have three civils on board with PEs who refuse to stamp anything that isn't theirs' even if the calculation and standards details are proven and there. It has to be their work or no deal so I usually have to pay a consultant PE to stamp it. They're pretty much a waste anyway but the owner keeps them. He tells me to go for my PE but I keep telling him once I get it he'll near be able to afford me.

I was placed in a similar position some years ago, being asked to sign off drawings without checking them. I contacted my engineering institution who sent me a letter echoing a lot of the points raised by posts here about it being fraudulent etc. The company backed down after that but any trust that we had was destroyed & I moved on not too long after.

It depends on you how you convince your boss in stopping him from doing something which is wrong. Also are you ready to surrender your job, if you refuse to sign?. It would be better to not work for such organisation which is not doing ethical business.

If you live and work in the USA you can check with your state Education Dept. about the legalities. If you decide to turn the POS in to the Board of Professional Engineering, you have better have some very hard proof of the coercion was occurring, otherwise it turns into a "he said she said" seesaw argument in front of the board and will be dismissed.

About 15 years ago I was being pressured by one of the Partners (a Registered Landscape Architect) of the firm into falsifying the design of a new subsurface wastewater disposal system. I knew that no percolation tests were performed, test pits not dug and that there was strong evidence of very shallow bedrock near the surface, yet this guy kept pressuring me for several days to "seal" and affix my signature to the permitting drawings and engineering report that were to be submitted to the New York State Dept. of Health.

I refused and threatened to report him to the Board of Professional Engineering at the NYS Education Dept. as well as the State Attoney's Office.

That shut his piehole up real fast and he never tried to pull that chit on me again.

It also happened later at a large firm I once worked for in Albany NY, where my "superior" was a non-PE who only had an Associates degree in business, tried to pressure me to falsifying an Engineering Report for submission to the Gov't.. I told him where to go. One day later I was dismissed. But hey, I found a better job much closer to home...a 15 minute commute vs. the previous 75 minute commute!

If I were you, I would start looking for another firm to work for (if this person pressuring you is a superior in your firm). If it's a client, refuse to release the document and tell him to desist & decease or you're reporting a criminal act.

This is another REASON why "bean counters" and non-licensed engineers should not own and run a consulting engineering firm, nor direct a Registered PE to perform illegal acts!!!!!! It's like the Fox guarding the Hen house.....

Here's a little reading on the topic. Beyond the obvious ethical dilema, people can die. Aside from bringing home the bacon, engineers have a responsibility to honor their profession. We'd have a lot less problems if everyone, in all professions, behaved themselves and lived by the golden rule.

http://ethics.iit.edu/publication/md_te.html

Absolutely yes it is illegal to ask a P.E. to seal a fraudulent report or document. Codes were created to protect the public safety and when you were granted the P.E. license, you swore an oath to uphold your moral and ethical obligations to do so. If you knowingly engage in this fraud, you are also committing a crime, moral turpitude (or worse if someone is hurt or killed), and would be held liable for any damages. You need to explain this to this idiot! Better to lose a job than to lose your self respect, your license, your career, all your possessions and, potentially, your freedom when someone is hurt or killed. After you explain this to him, if he does not immediately thank you and take action to correct the report or document, then you need to report this to your state board and possibly the police.

Don't do it.

You'll never be able to un-ring that bell and will forever have to live with shame.

There is probably a legal ramification here, but there is certainly a moral ramification.

It's just that simple.

I have a problem here.

Here's a person, asking a question about ethics and morality, who doesn't even have the good sense to post using their name.

What does AP#1 have to be ashamed of that they don't give their user name?

Sounds like maybe he's already rung the bell and is in trouble for it.

Now they are fishing, or trolling, us for some way out??????????

Tell us, AP#1, what have you done?

Maybe you should hire a lawyer. You guys might have more in common than you think.

If the person wasn't bothered by either the decision that was already made, or the decision facing him, he wouldn't have posted at all.

Settle your ass down you old junkyard dog.

There's not a person on this forum that hasn't experienced this situation...unless they're the boss.

Look Grasshopper,

I'm doing the best that I can. It's 106°F right now.

We've had 5 boys here (3 are ours) since yesterday at noon. They're in the pool now.

That's 5 human food disposals 7-14 years old. All day and all night. Buy cola stock too. Cause that runs out too.

I don't buy it, but Nana does.

I hear they are having fireworks over at "Bubbies " tonight. Maybe they'll be there tonight.

and they probably succumbed to such pressure, untold times, in order to become the ''Boss''....

This is one of the primary mechanisms through which we get so many ''managers'' and so few ''leaders''...