Obligation-Conflict Resolution
Case 16-3 (2016) · Professional Selection—Receipt of Submission Beyond the Published Deadline
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.
specification
Given the unusual delivery to the city manager's office and its discovery through an administrative assistant rather than the clerk's office, the board concluded that documenting the chain of custody was necessary to protect the process, while individualized disclosure to the other 13 firms was not required because the official record satisfies...
What the board concluded
- Engineer A should return the submittal to Firm B unopened with the explanation that the bid was received late.
Recorded violations:
Late Submittal Delivery violates Engineer A Procurement Rules Adherence Duty