Obligation-Conflict Resolution
Case 20-4 (2020) · Public Health, Safety, and Welfare—Drinking Water Quality
Professional obligations conflict, and the board applies no fixed rule for which one wins.
Each resolution is recorded as three edges:
competesWith (the tension),
prevailsOver (the obligation the board allowed to win in this case), and
defeasibleUnder (the situation under which the yielding obligation gives way).
The same tension is then traced across comparable cases, where its resolution shifts with context.
Hover any obligation or state to see its definition; click to open it in OntServe.
How this case resolved it
No obligation was overridden in this case: the board resolved the apparent tension without defeat, as recorded below.
Resolved without defeat
The board resolved the apparent tension here by setting a duty's boundary (specification) or by finding no genuine conflict on the facts (dissolution), rather than by allowing one obligation to prevail over another.
dissolution
Because the engineers actually informed MWC of the project's likely failure before the MWC's override occurred, the board characterized III.1.b and II.1.a as a duty ladder, informing the client first and escalating to the regulator only once that internal warning was rejected, rather than as a forced choice between candor and public protection.
specification
Since the board anchored the external reporting duty specifically to the act of the client overruling safety-driven engineering judgment, it concluded that had MWC accepted the delay recommendation instead, that triggering event would be absent and only the routine duty to advise the client would remain.
What the board concluded
- In fulfillment of their ethical obligations under the Code, Engineers A and B should formally communicate their concerns to the MWC, including that they believe the project will not be successful.
- Both Engineers A and B have ethical obligations to notify the MWC and other appropriate authorities that prematurely changing the water source puts the public health and safety at risk. Furthermore, Engineers A and B have independent obligations to formally and in writing report their concerns to the state regulatory agency. While they may provide a joint and cooperative report, each has an...