Step 4: Review

Engineers shall be objective and truthful in professional reports, statements, or testimony. They shall include all relevant and pertinent information in such reports, statements, or testimony, which should bear the date indicating when it was current.

Engineers may express publicly technical opinions that are founded upon knowledge of the facts and competence in the subject matter.

Engineers shall issue no statements, criticisms, or arguments on technical matters that are inspired or paid for by interested parties, unless they have prefaced their comments by explicitly identifying the interested parties on whose behalf they are speaking, and by revealing the existence of any interest the engineers may have in the matters.

Engineers shall acknowledge their errors and shall not distort or alter the facts.

Engineers shall advise their clients or employers when they believe a project will not be successful.

Engineers shall avoid the use of statements containing a material misrepresentation of fact or omitting a material fact.

It was unethical for Engineer B to issue his report without mentioning the failed operation of the testing equipment.

It was unethical for Engineer B to not communicate with any representative of Engineer A about the project.

It was unethical for Engineer B to not communicate with the contractor’s supervisor and workers who were on the job during construction.

It was unethical for Engineer B to issue his report without mentioning that the 19 piles questioned had, according to the driving records, met refusal.

The Board's finding that omitting the test equipment failure was unethical can be extended: the omission was not merely an incomplete disclosure but functioned as a form of selective data use that made the report's conclusion appear more reliable than the underlying test conditions warranted. Because the vibratory hammer use, undocumented hammer drops, and non-duplicated penetration depth were all known to Engineer B through the independent geotechnical consultant's testimony, the failure to disclose these flaws alongside the equipment failure suggests a pattern of curating findings to support a predetermined conclusion favorable to the retaining client, rather than an isolated oversight.

The Board did not explicitly address the structural conflict created by Engineer B's retention: because the municipality was an adverse party to Engineer A in ongoing litigation, Engineer B's engagement itself created an inherent tension between objectivity and client loyalty. The Board's conclusion that the omission was unethical would be strengthened by recognizing that forensic engineers retained by litigants have a heightened, not diminished, duty of complete disclosure precisely because the adversarial context creates structural incentives toward selective reporting.

Beyond finding Engineer B's failure to communicate with Engineer A's representatives unethical, the Board's reasoning can be extended to note that this omission was particularly significant because Engineer A's on-site representatives possessed direct, verifiable, firsthand knowledge of the original driving conditions that could have been used to corroborate or refute Engineer B's stated 'suspicions' about the driving records. Failing to seek out readily available primary evidence, rather than relying on unverified doubts, transforms a mere gap in outreach into a deliberate avoidance of disconfirming evidence.

Extending the Board's conclusion regarding Engineer B's failure to consult the contractor's supervisor and workers, this omission is especially notable because these witnesses could have spoken directly to the physical circumstances of pile driving to refusal, information that bears directly on the credibility of the driving records Engineer B claimed to distrust. The Board's conclusion implies a broader diligence standard: an engineer who forms a working hypothesis casting doubt on documentary evidence has an affirmative duty to test that hypothesis against available witness testimony before finalizing a report meant to be relied upon by third parties or courts.

The Board's conclusion regarding the omission of the refusal data can be extended by noting the inconsistency in Engineer B's own justifications: initially citing distrust of the driving records, and later claiming the records fell outside the defined scope of work. This inconsistency undermines both justifications and suggests that the scope-of-work claim was a post hoc rationalization rather than a genuine methodological boundary established before the investigation began, which is itself an ethical concern independent of the omission's substantive impact.

Beyond the Board's finding that omitting the refusal data was unethical, the materiality of this omission is heightened because the wave equation calculations, applying accepted engineering methodology to the very driving records Engineer B chose not to discuss, would have shown pile strength several multiples over the design requirement. This means the omitted data was not peripheral but directly contradicted the report's central conclusion, making the omission not simply incomplete but affirmatively misleading to any reader relying on the report to assess the 19 piles' adequacy.

Engineer B's narrow definition of 'scope of work' to exclude the pile driving records was not a neutral methodological boundary but a choice that functionally removed the single most important contradictory data set from consideration. Because the driving records were directly relevant to whether the 19 piles met design safety factors, defining them as out-of-scope after the fact suggests the scope was fitted to produce a client-favorable conclusion rather than derived from an objective engineering assessment of what data were necessary to answer the question posed.

The fact that Engineer B was retained by the municipality, a party adverse to Engineer A in ongoing litigation, created an inherent risk that the forensic report would be shaped by litigation strategy rather than objective engineering findings. Adequate safeguards would have required Engineer B to adopt an explicit, documented, and consistent scope of investigation established before testing began, to disclose all known limitations of the test conditions, and to seek input from all parties with relevant firsthand knowledge, including Engineer A's representatives. The absence of these safeguards allowed the report to function as an advocacy document rather than an independent technical opinion.

Engineer B's shifting justifications for omitting the driving records - first citing distrust of the records and venting concerns, then later citing scope limitations - are not merely inconsistent explanations but evidence that neither justification was the true operative reason at the time the report was written. This pattern suggests the omission was decided upon for reasons related to the desired outcome of the report, with post hoc rationales supplied only when the omission was challenged, which is itself indicative of a lack of objectivity in the original reporting process.

Engineer B should have disclosed, prior to or within the report itself, that the test conditions -including the equipment failure, use of a vibratory hammer not used in the original driving, and undocumented hammer drops before blow-count recording- differed materially from the original pile driving conditions. Failure to disclose these known deviations deprived the municipality, Engineer A, and any reviewing body of the ability to properly weigh the reliability of the test pile conclusions against the original 90-pile driving records, and this omission independently undermines the report's claim to completeness regardless of the scope-of-work argument.

From a deontological standpoint, Engineer B failed his duty of complete and truthful reporting. A duty-based ethic does not permit selective omission of material facts simply because they are inconvenient to a conclusion; the duty to report truthfully and completely is not conditioned on whether the omitted facts happen to support or undermine the client's position. By omitting both the test equipment failure and the driving refusal data, Engineer B violated a categorical obligation of honesty in professional reporting, independent of whether the ultimate substantive conclusion happened to be defensible.

The fact that Engineer B's report happened to support the municipality's litigation position does not justify the selective use of data. Evaluating an engineer's conduct by the correctness or convenience of the outcome for one party is a consequentialist standard that the engineering codes of ethics reject in favor of process-based objectivity requirements; an ethically sound methodology must be evaluated independent of whose litigation interest it serves. Since the process here excluded material contradictory evidence and lacked outreach to independent knowledgeable parties, the outcome cannot retroactively validate the process.

Engineer B's declination to communicate with Engineer A's available on-site representatives, who could speak directly to the accuracy of the pile driving records, reflects a failure of professional integrity in fact-gathering. Given Engineer B's own later admission that the driving records looked 'suspicious,' diligence and integrity required seeking out the individuals best positioned to confirm or refute that suspicion before finalizing conclusions that materially affected Engineer A's professional and legal standing.

Even if Engineer B's scope of work had been formally and explicitly documented in advance to exclude review of the pile driving records, the Board would likely still have found the omission unethical, because the codes of ethics require objectivity and completeness in reported conclusions regardless of self-imposed scope limitations. An engineer cannot ethically narrow the scope of an investigation in a way that predictably conceals material contradictory evidence directly bearing on the central question the report purports to answer.

If the dynamic test equipment had functioned properly throughout the test, the Board would still likely have found the report ethically deficient because the deficiency lies not in the equipment failure alone but in the failure to disclose it, and separately in the failure to disclose the driving refusal data for the 19 piles. The equipment failure is an aggravating factor compounding the report's incompleteness, not the sole basis for the ethical violation; the omission of the refusal data would independently constitute a violation regardless of equipment performance.

The case demonstrates that when Objectivity in Forensic Opinion and Client Service Loyalty in Report come into direct conflict in an adversarial litigation setting, the Code does not treat them as equally weighted values to be balanced—it subordinates client loyalty entirely. Engineer B's conduct shows what happens when this hierarchy is inverted: the retention by an adverse litigant did not relax his objectivity duty but rather heightened the need for it, precisely because the risk of unconscious or motivated bias toward the retaining party's litigation position was greatest in that context. The Board's findings across all four omissions indicate that forensic engineers retained by parties to litigation have a duty to affirmatively guard against client-serving selectivity, not merely avoid intentional dishonesty.

Complete Reporting in Test Pile Report and Complete Reporting in Pile Report were never actually in tension with Client Service Loyalty in Report in a legitimate professional sense—the appearance of tension arose only because Engineer B conflated 'serving the client' with 'serving the client's litigation position.' Genuine client service, properly understood under the Code, requires giving the client an accurate and complete engineering picture (including unfavorable facts like equipment failure and refusal data) so the client can make informed decisions, even in litigation. The case teaches that apparent principle conflicts between completeness and loyalty are often illusory, dissolving once loyalty is correctly defined as loyalty to sound engineering practice rather than to a party's desired outcome.

The unresolved tension in this case is methodological rather than purely ethical: Engineer B's narrow, after-the-fact definition of 'scope of work' functioned as a mechanism to avoid confronting Complete Reporting obligations by excluding inconvenient data (the driving records) before the objectivity question ever arose. This reveals that scope-of-work definitions are not ethically neutral technical boundaries—they can themselves become instruments of bias when set unilaterally by an engineer with a stake in a client-favorable outcome, without independent scrutiny. The case establishes that Objectivity in Forensic Opinion must extend upstream to the scoping decision itself, not just to interpretation of data once scope is set, because scope narrowing that excludes materially relevant contradictory evidence is functionally equivalent to selective reporting.

Was it ethical for Engineer B to not have included the failed operation of the test equipment in his report?

Was it ethical for Engineer B not to communicate with any representatives of Engineer A about the project?

Was it ethical for Engineer B not to communicate with the contractor’s supervisor and workers who were on the job during construction?

Was it ethical for Engineer B to issue his report without mentioning that the 19 piles questioned had, according to the driving records, met refusal?

Did Engineer B's decision to define 'scope of work' narrowly so as to exclude review of the pile driving records itself constitute a methodological choice that predetermined a client-favorable conclusion?

Given that Engineer B was retained by the municipality, which was a party adverse to Engineer A in litigation, what safeguards should have existed to prevent the report from being shaped by the retaining party's litigation interests rather than objective engineering findings?

Why did Engineer B offer inconsistent justifications after the fact (first citing distrust of the driving records and venting concerns, later citing scope limitations), and what does this inconsistency reveal about the actual basis for the omissions in the report?

Should Engineer B have disclosed to the municipality, before issuing the report, that known flaws in the test conditions (vibratory hammer use, undocumented hammer drops, non-duplicated penetration depth) might undermine the reliability of the test pile results relative to the original 90 piles?

How should Engineer B's duty of Objectivity in Forensic Opinion be balanced against Client Service Loyalty in Report when the retaining municipality was a party in adversarial litigation against Engineer A?

Does Complete Reporting in Test Pile Report conflict with Client Service Loyalty in Report when full disclosure of test equipment failure and flawed test conditions could weaken the client's litigation position?

How should Objectivity in Adversarial Setting be reconciled with Complete Reporting in Pile Report when the underlying driving records, if fully reported, would have undermined the very conclusion the report reached?

Can Objectivity in Forensic Opinion be maintained if an engineer selectively narrows the scope of investigation to exclude data (such as driving records) that would materially affect the conclusion?

From a deontological perspective, did Engineer B fulfill his duty of complete and truthful reporting by omitting the test equipment failure and the pile driving refusal data from his concluding report?

Did the outcome of Engineer B's report—supporting the municipality's litigation position against Engineer A—justify his selective use of test data and omission of contradictory driving records?

Did Engineer B act with professional integrity when he declined to communicate with Engineer A's on-site representatives, who were available to speak to the accuracy of the pile driving records, before finalizing his report?

Did Engineer B fulfill his duty of diligent fact-gathering by failing to interview the contractor's supervisor and workers who directly observed the original pile driving, especially given his own admission that he found the driving records 'suspicious'?

If Engineer B's written scope of work had explicitly and formally excluded review of the pile driving records (rather than this being an after-the-fact justification), would the Board still have concluded that omitting the refusal data from the report was unethical?

If Engineer A's on-site representatives had not been available or willing to testify about the accuracy of the driving records, would the Board still have found Engineer B's failure to communicate with Engineer A's representatives unethical?

If the dynamic test equipment had not failed during the test pile driving, would the Board still have found Engineer B's report ethically deficient for its treatment of the 19 questioned piles?

If the test piles had been driven under conditions identical to the original piles (without a vibratory hammer and without dropped hammer strikes before blow-count recording), would the Board's finding that Engineer B's report was materially incomplete still apply with the same force?

Although the settlement decision itself carries no explicit normative violation, it is the pivot point triggered by the contractor's lawsuit that sets in motion the municipality's need for expert testimony, so its neutrality reflects a procedural response whose ethical weight is deferred to the downstream retention and testimony actions it causes.

The justification offered after the report violates the duty to include all relevant and pertinent information precisely because it is causally rooted in Engineer B's earlier selective report issuance, meaning the post-hoc explanation compounds rather than corrects the original omission and further denies the municipality full access to material facts.

As an initial, ethically unmarked acceptance of the design engagement, this action functions as the contextual starting point for the professional relationship but does not itself trigger any obligation fulfillment or breach, leaving its significance tied to how later actions within that engagement are conducted.

Retaining an expert witness in response to the mediated settlement is a routine litigation-support step with no independent normative charge, yet it matters because it is the causal link that produces the design basis testimony which in turn necessitates the retention of a test supervisor, showing how procedural choices can propagate further obligations without themselves being violations.

Retaining a test supervisor following the design basis testimony is itself normatively neutral, but its importance lies in establishing the oversight role whose subsequent compromise, through test condition deviations attributed to Engineer B, produces pile bond disruption and deficient testimony, showing that the ethical failure originates in the supervisor's later conduct rather than in the retention decision.

Retaining an independent observer was guided by the duty to expose all available technical facts, and although it fulfills no explicit obligation on its own, it created the factual basis that later allowed Engineer A to be named responsible for surfacing the test deficiency testimony.

Because Design Basis Testimony fulfilled the obligation to include all relevant and pertinent information and was guided by the duty to expose all technical facts, it gave the municipality a trustworthy account of the design that directly led it to retain a test supervisor to further verify performance.

Test Condition Deviation carries no normative edges yet it is the direct cause of Pile Bond Disruption attributed to Engineer B, showing that even an action unlinked to explicit obligations can produce ethically significant physical harm to the test's integrity.

Test Deficiency Testimony fulfilled the duty to include all relevant and pertinent information and was guided by the commitment to exposing all technical facts, so its occurrence, triggered by the test equipment failure, ensured that the shortcomings of the test were not concealed despite the engineers' shared responsibility for the failure.

Consultation Omission has no stated obligation attached to it, but its causal role in producing Selective Report Issuance, and subsequently the Post-Report Justification and Denial of Expert Review Opportunity, shows how a seemingly minor procedural lapse by Engineer B cascaded into a broader disservice to the client municipality.

By violating the duty to include all relevant and pertinent information and the duty of fact-gathering diligence, Engineer B's Selective Report Issuance directly produced Post-Report Justification and denied the municipality a genuine expert review opportunity, showing how the initial omission compounded into downstream harm to the client's ability to make informed decisions.

Although Records Exclusion Decision itself is not marked as fulfilling or violating any obligation, it functioned as the causal trigger for Selective Report Issuance, meaning the normative violations that followed originated from this seemingly neutral act of deciding what data to exclude.

The question arises because Engineer B's report selectively omitted the test equipment failure, creating tension between his duty to report all pertinent facts and his role as an expert serving the municipality's adversarial interests.

The question arose because Engineer B had access to available representatives from Engineer A's side, per the Available On-Site Representatives state, yet chose not to engage them, creating tension between the obligation to be thorough and objective and the obligation to remain an independent, client-focused evaluator in a legal dispute.

The question arises because Engineer B had available on-site representatives who observed the flawed test pile conditions but were not consulted, creating tension between the professional obligation to gather complete facts and the practical or ethical boundaries of engaging with an opposing party's employees during litigation.

The question arises because Engineer B selectively used data in a report meant to resolve a technical dispute, creating uncertainty about whether an incomplete but not false report violates engineering ethics norms of completeness under the NSPE Code of Ethics.

The question arises because Engineer B's Records Exclusion Decision sits at the intersection of a discretionary scoping action and a substantive omission of material facts, making it ambiguous whether the exclusion was a neutral methodological choice or an outcome-driven framing that violates the duty to include all relevant and pertinent information.

The question arises because forensic engineering retained by an adversarial party creates an inherent structural risk that findings serve litigation strategy rather than technical truth, and the actual report's omissions and exclusions provide concrete evidence that this risk materialized without any stated safeguard.

The question arises because Engineer B's inconsistent explanations, first distrust of data then scope limitation, expose a gap between the stated warrant for the omission and its actual motivation, raising doubt about whether client loyalty improperly overrode the duty of complete and diligent reporting.

The question emerges because Engineer B's report proceeded to a conclusion about pile strength despite known deviations in how the test piles were driven, creating a contested judgment about whether professional completeness obligations required upfront disclosure of those flaws rather than allowing the municipality and other parties to discover them later.

The question arises because the same retention data supports two obligations that point toward different reporting conduct, and the Engineer B Report Omissions and Selective Data Use suggest the client service warrant may have overridden the objectivity warrant in an adversarial forensic context.

The question arises because Engineer B faces a forensic reporting task where the same underlying facts, namely equipment failure and flawed test conditions, trigger both a professional duty of full disclosure and a client loyalty expectation that favors selective reporting to preserve the municipality's legal position.

The question arises because Engineer B produced a report as an adversarial expert witness that omitted pile driving records whose inclusion would have contradicted the report's own conclusion, creating direct tension between the duty of objective complete reporting and the duty of client service loyalty.

The question arises because Engineer B's report selectively omitted the driving records that Municipality Expert later relied on in testimony, creating doubt about whether the resulting conclusion was shaped by client loyalty rather than independent technical judgment.

The question arises because Engineer B's concluding report selectively excluded known adverse test conditions and records, creating a direct conflict between the deontological obligation of complete truthful reporting under the NSPE Code and the practical pressure of serving the municipality as client in an adversarial claim setting.

The question arises because a favorable litigation outcome for the municipality created a post hoc justification narrative that conflicts with the antecedent professional duty to report all relevant technical facts, exposing a gap between outcome-based and duty-based ethical reasoning.

The question arises because Engineer B's decision not to consult available representatives who could speak to record accuracy creates a conflict between the obligation to gather all pertinent facts and the practical norms of client representation in a forensic, adversarial context.

The question arises because Engineer B's admitted suspicion about the driving records creates a gap between what a thorough fact gathering process would require and what his narrower report and testimony actually delivered, making it unclear whether his omission reflects negligence or a reasonable scope limitation.

The question arose because the Board's finding of unethical omission rested on the fact that the scope exclusion was asserted only after the report was criticized, raising doubt about whether a genuinely pre-defined scope limitation would have changed the ethical calculus.

This question arose because the Board's finding depended on the specific fact that consultable representatives existed and were accessible, raising doubt about whether the ethical violation rests on the omission itself or merely on the missed opportunity created by their availability.

The question arises because the Board's finding conflates a factual complication (equipment failure) with a normative judgment about reporting completeness, leaving it unclear whether the deficiency stems from the flawed test itself or from Engineer B's independent failure to gather and disclose all relevant facts about the 19 piles.

This question emerged because Engineer B's report was flagged as materially incomplete in a context where the test piles were driven under altered conditions, leaving ambiguous whether the ethical violation was contingent on that specific deviation or reflects a more general failure to disclose relevant facts that would hold regardless of test conditions.

Given that the dynamic test equipment failed during driving of the test piles and that Engineer B was aware of this failure, the board concluded that omitting it from the concluding report deprived readers of information necessary to judge the reliability of the findings, violating the duty of complete and truthful reporting.

Because Engineer A's on-site representatives were accessible and possessed direct knowledge bearing on the disputed driving records, the board concluded that Engineer B's failure to communicate with them before finalizing an adverse report was an unethical lapse in objective fact-gathering.

Given that Engineer B privately doubted the accuracy of the driving records yet never sought out the supervisor or workers who observed the original driving, the board found this failure to pursue readily available firsthand evidence unethical.

Because the driving records showed the 19 piles had met refusal, a fact directly relevant to whether those piles retained adequate capacity, the board concluded that Engineer B's omission of this data, achieved partly through a narrowly framed scope of work, rendered the report unethically incomplete.

Given that Engineer B knew of multiple test deficiencies through the independent consultant's testimony yet omitted all of them from a report favoring the municipality in adversarial litigation, and later gave shifting justifications for the omissions, the board inferred a pattern of selective data curation rather than isolated oversight, extending its finding on the equipment failure omission to his broader conduct.

Given that the municipality retaining Engineer B was already suing Engineer A, the underlying tension between objectivity and client loyalty existed even though the Board's stated conclusion addressed only the omission itself, suggesting the disclosure duty should have been treated as heightened rather than ordinary.

Because Engineer A's representatives could have directly confirmed or refuted the driving conditions Engineer B doubted, the Board's finding of unethical non-communication is strengthened by treating this failure as an avoidance of disconfirming evidence rather than a mere oversight.

Since Engineer B openly doubted the driving records yet never sought out the supervisor or workers who could speak to the actual driving conditions, the Board's conclusion is extended to imply a broader diligence obligation to test hypotheses before publishing a reliance-bearing report.

Because Engineer B first voiced suspicion about the driving records and only later recharacterized their exclusion as a scope limitation, the Board's conclusion is extended to treat this inconsistency itself, independent of the omission's impact, as evidence of an ethical lapse.

Given that applying the wave equation to the very driving records Engineer B omitted would have shown pile strength far exceeding design requirements, the Board's finding of an unethical omission is reinforced by recognizing the omission as affirmatively misleading rather than merely incomplete.

Given that the driving records bore directly on the safety-factor question and that Engineer B's scope limitation surfaced only after his conclusion was contested, the board inferred that the scope was fitted to the desired outcome rather than derived from an objective assessment of necessary data.

Because the municipality was Engineer A's litigation adversary and no scope, disclosure, or consultation safeguards were documented, the board concluded that the absence of these protections allowed the report to function as advocacy rather than independent technical opinion.

Since Engineer B offered a distrust-based explanation first and a scope-based explanation only later when the omission was questioned, the board reasoned that this shifting pattern indicated the true reason for omission was outcome-related and only rationalized after the fact.

Because the test piles were driven under materially different conditions than the original 90 piles and these differences were never disclosed, the board found the report incomplete on this ground alone, regardless of how the scope-of-work dispute over the driving records was resolved.

Given that Engineer B omitted both the equipment failure and the driving refusal data, the board concluded that a duty-based ethic barred selective omission of inconvenient facts, making the violation categorical rather than contingent on the ultimate defensibility of his conclusion.

Because Engineer B's report favored the municipality's position while the fact-gathering process excluded contradictory records and skipped available knowledgeable sources, the board held that this favorable alignment could not retroactively cure the process defects, since ethics codes evaluate methodology independent of whose interest the outcome serves.

Given that Engineer B admitted suspicion about the driving records yet had access to on-site representatives who could confirm or refute that suspicion, the board concluded that failing to contact them before issuing conclusions damaging to Engineer A reflected a lapse in professional integrity and diligence.

Even hypothesizing that Engineer B had formally pre-defined his scope to exclude the driving records, the board reasoned that because those records were material to the very question the report answered, no scope definition could excuse their omission under the objectivity and completeness requirements.

Reasoning counterfactually, the board found that even if the dynamic test equipment had worked perfectly, the report would still be ethically deficient because the separate failure to disclose the 19 piles' refusal data stood on its own as a material omission, showing the violation was not contingent on the equipment malfunction.

Because Engineer B was retained by a litigant adverse to Engineer A and the board found four separate omissions consistent with client-favorable selectivity, it concluded that adversarial retention heightens rather than relaxes the objectivity duty, establishing that forensic engineers must affirmatively guard against client-serving bias in such settings.

Given that Engineer B treated client loyalty as loyalty to the municipality's litigation goals, the board concluded that the apparent conflict between completeness and loyalty was illusory, because properly construed Code-based client service requires disclosing unfavorable facts like the equipment failure and refusal data so the client can act on a full engineering picture.

Given that Engineer B narrowed the scope of work only after finding the driving records suspicious and then offered inconsistent after-the-fact rationales while failing to consult available witnesses, the board concluded that objectivity in forensic opinion must extend to the scoping decision itself, since a self-interested exclusion of contradictory evidence is indistinguishable in effect from selectively omitting it from the report.

Should Engineer B include the failed test equipment operation and the driving records showing the 19 piles met refusal in his report?

Should Engineer B have communicated with representatives of Engineer A to verify or refute his suspicions about the driving records?

Should Engineer B have consulted the contractor's supervisor and workers who were on the job during pile driving?

How should Engineer B have balanced objectivity in his forensic report against loyalty to the retaining municipality's adversarial litigation position?