NSPE Code of Ethics Case Study (Unlicensed Engineer)

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Charles Landers, former Anchorage assemblyman and unlicensed engineer for Constructing Engineers, was found guilty of forging partner Henry Wilson’s signature and using his professional seal on at least 40 documents. The falsification of the documents was done without Wilson’s knowledge, who was away from his office when they were signed. Constructing Engineers designs and test septic systems. The signed and sealed documents certified to the Anchorage city health department that local septic systems met city wastewater disposal regulations. Circuit Judge Michael Wolverton banned Landers for one year from practicing as an engineer’s, architect’s, or land surveyor’s assistant. He also sentenced him to 20 days in jail, 160 hours of community service, $4000 in fines, and a year of probation. Finally, Landers was ordered to inform property owners about the problems with the documents, explain how he would rectify the problem, and pay for a professional engineer to review, sign, and seal the documents. Assistant Attorney General Dan Cooper had requested the maximum penalty: a four-year suspended sentence and $40,000 in fines. Cooper argued that “the 40 repeated incidents make his offense the most serious within the misuse of an engineer’s seal.” This may have been the first time a case like this was litigated in Alaska. The Attorney General’s office took on the case after seeking advice from several professional engineers in the Anchorage area. According to Cooper, Landers said he signed and sealed the documents because “his clients needed something done right away.” (The documents were needed before going ahead with property transactions.) Lander’s attorney, Bill Oberly, argued that his client should be sentenced as a least offender since public health and safety weren’t really jeopardized–subsequent review of the documents by a professional engineer found no violations of standards (other than forgery and the misuse of the seal themselves). The documents were resubmitted without needing changes. However, Judge Wolverton contended that Lander’s actions constituted a serious breach of public trust. The public, he said, relies on the word of those, like professional engineers, who are entrusted with special responsibilities: “Our system would break down completely if the word of individuals could not be relied upon.” The judge also cited a letter from Richard Armstrong, chairman of the Architects, Engineers, and Land Surveyors Board of Registration for Alaska’s Department of commerce and Economic Development. Armstrong said: Some of the reasons for requiring professional engineers to seal their work are to protect the public from unqualified practitioners; to assure some minimum level of competency in the profession; to make practicing architects, engineers, and land surveyors responsible for their work; and to promote a level of ethics in the profession. The discovery of this case will cast a shadow of doubt on other engineering designed by properly licensed individuals.
Questions:
1. Identify and discuss the ethically important elements in this case.
2. How relevant is it that subsequent review showed that none of the falsified documents needed to be changed? (Although Judge Wolverton did not impose the maximum penalty, he did not treat Landers as a least offender.)

NSPE Code of Ethics Case Study (The Aberdeen Three)

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Resource Conservation and Recovery Act In 1976, Congress passed the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). The purpose of the act was to provide technical and financial assistance for the development of management plans and facilities for the recovery of energy and other resources from discarded materials and for the safe disposal of discarded materials, and to regulate the management of hazardous waste. This 1976 act expanded the Solid Waste Disposal Act, thereby authorizing state program-and-implementation grants for providing incentives for recovery of resources from solid wastes, resource conservation, and control of hazardous waste disposal. In addition to establishing the EPA Office of Solid Waste, requiring state planning and a ban on open dumping of solid hazardous wastes, RCRA also implemented criminal fines for violations of the open dumping or hazardous waste disposal guidelines. Aberdeen Proving Grounds Aberdeen is a US Army facility where, among other things, chemical weapons are developed. All three engineers involved in the case were experts in the chemical weapons field, and Dee was responsible for developing the binary chemical weapon. The US Army has used the Aberdeen Proving Ground to develop, test, store, and dispose of chemical weapons since World War II. Periodic inspections between 1983 and 1986 revealed serious problems at the facility, known as the Pilot Plant, where these engineers worked. These problems included:

  • Flammable and cancer-causing substances left in the open.
  • Chemicals that become lethal if mixed were kept in the same room.
  • Drums of toxic substances were leaking. There were chemicals everywhere — misplaced, unlabeled, or poorly contained. When part of the roof collapsed, smashing several chemical drums stored below, no one cleaned up or moved the spilled substance and broken containers for weeks.
    The funds for the cleanup would not have even come out of the engineers’ budget — the Army would have paid the cost. All the managers had to do was make a request for the Army cleanup funds, but they made no effort to resolve the situation. When an external sulfuric acid tank leaked 200 gallons of acid into a nearby river, state and federal investigators arrived and discovered that the chemical retaining dikes were unfit, and the system designed to contain and treat hazardous chemicals was corroded and leaking chemicals into the ground. The three engineers maintained that they did not believe the plant’s storage practices were illegal, and that their job description did not include responsibility for specific environmental rules. They were chemical engineers, they practiced good “engineering sense,” and had never had an incident. They were just doing things the way they had always been done at the Pilot Plant. The judicial process On June 28, 1988, after about two years of investigation, the three chemical engineers, Carl Gepp, William Dee, and Robert Lentz, now known as the “Aberdeen Three,” were criminally indicted for storing, treating, and disposing of hazardous wastes in violation of RCRA at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. Six months following the indictment, the Federal Government took the case of the “Aberdeen Three” to court. Each defendant was charged with four counts of illegally storing and disposing of waste.
    In 1989, the three chemical engineers were tried and convicted of illegally storing, treating, and disposing of hazardous waste. William Dee was found guilty on one count, and Lentz and Gepp were found guilty on three counts each of violating the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Although they were not the ones who were actually performing the illegal acts, they were the managers and allowed the improper handling of the chemicals. No one above them knew about the extent of the problems at the Pilot Plant. Each faced up to 15 years in prison and $750,000 in fines, but were sentenced only to three years probation and 1000 hours of community service. The judge based his decision on the high standing of the defendants in the community, and the fact they they had already incurred enormous court costs. Since this was a criminal indictment, the US Army could not assist in their legal defense. This case marked the first time that individual federal employees were convicted of a criminal act under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Discussion of the Ethical Issues
    1. What could the three engineers have done differently?
    2. What, if anything, could their subordinates have done differently?
    3. What, if anything, could their superiors (i.e., the Army command) have done differently?
    4. Should the Justice department have done anything differently?
    5. Do you think the judge’s sentencing of the “Aberdeen Three” was too lenient or too harsh? Why?
    The actions of the three engineers bring to mind an important question. These engineers were knowledgeable about the effects of hazardous chemicals on people and the environment (they developed chemical weapons), so why were they seemingly so unconcerned about the disposal of hazardous chemicals? It is interesting to note that even after they were convicted, the three engineers showed no apparent remorse for their wrongdoing. They kept insisting that the whole case was blown out of proportion, and that they had done nothing wrong. All containers of hazardous chemical have labels which state that the chemicals must be disposed of according to RCRA requirements, yet the three engineers maintained that they had no knowledge of RCRA. Perhaps the best answer to this question is that they did not hold their responsibilities to the public as engineers as high on their list of priorities as other responsibilities they held. To better understand the responsibility of the engineer, some key elements of the professional responsibilities of an engineer should be examined. As engineers test designs for ever-increasing speeds, loads, capacities and the like, they must always be aware of their obligation to society to protect the public welfare. After all, the public has provided engineers, through the tax base, the means for obtaining an education and, through legislation, the means to license and regulate themselves. In return, engineers have a responsibility to protect the safety and well-being of the public in all of their professional efforts. This is part of the implicit social contract all engineers have agreed to when they accepted admission to an engineering college.
    According to the prosecution, the three engineers involved in the Aberdeen case placed a low priority on this responsibility to society, and instead emphasized the importance of their military mission. The first canon in the ASME Code of Ethics urges engineers to “hold paramount the safety, health and welfare of the public in the performance of their professional duties.” Every major engineering code of ethics reminds engineers of the importance of their responsibility to keep the safety and well being of the public at the top of their list of priorities. Although company loyalty is important, it can, in some circumstances be damaging to the company, if the employee does not think about the long-term effects of his actions on the company. It is a sad fact about loyalty that it invites… single-mindedness. Single-minded pursuit of a goal is sometimes delightfully romantic, even a real inspiration. But it is hardly something to advocate to engineers, whose impact on the safety of the public is so very significant. Irresponsibility, whether caused by selfishness or by magnificently unselfish loyalty, can have most unfortunate consequences.

The engineers were also unaware that their experiments and their handling of waste products had social impact, even though they considered themselves to be far removed from the outside world. The leaking of sulfuric acid into Canal Creek quickly disproved their claim of being removed from the outside world. No matter how far an engineer feels removed from society, he still has an effect on it, even if it is an indirect one. Even though the Pilot Plant was located on a military base, it still had to follow the RCRA guidelines, regardless of its military mission. In addition to their responsibilities to society in general, the “Aberdeen Three” also had responsibilities to their subordinates, which they also overlooked. It was one of these employees who originally went to the press and exposed what was going on at the Pilot Plant. Employees were working under conditions where chemicals were dripping down from leaky pipes above them, and in violation of RCRA rules. Employees who had no hazardous materials training were ordered to handle and dispose of chemicals of which they had little or no knowledge. Whether or not there were rules for the training of employees who would be handing hazardous materials, the three engineers had a responsibility to those employees to inform them of what they were dealing with and how to handle the waste materials properly. The three engineers convicted in this case were well aware of the dangers the chemicals they worked with on a daily basis posed to society, yet they allowed their unfounded feelings of separation from the outside world and their misguided loyalty to their military mission to lessen the importance they placed on their responsibility to society as engineers. The prosecutor in the case had this to say about the Aberdeen Three: “These are experts in their field. If they can’t be expected to enforce the law, then I’m not sure who can.”

NSPE Code of Ethics Case Study (The Ford Pinto)

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“The Ford Pinto case is mentioned in most Business Ethics texts as an example of Cost-Benefit analysis, yet in those formats any appreciation of the complexity surrounding the issues of such decisions is overly simplified. As a thorough study, this book provides material that enriches the entire idea of
using a particular case as an avenue of learning about Ethics, Business, Society, Technology, and Government Regulation. Rather than as a mere reference tool for educators and other professionals, this book could be successful in the classroom in a way that no other anthology or collection of short case studies could be.” – Greg Pasquarello, Neumann College
It was the late 60s, when the demand for sub-compacts was rising on the market. Iacocca’s specifications for the design of the car were uncompromising: “The Pinto was not to weigh an ounce over 2,000 pounds and not cost a cent over $2,000.” During design and production, however, crash tests revealed a serious defect in the gas tank. In crashes over 25 miles per hour, the gas tank always ruptured. To correct it would have required changing and strengthening the design. Many studies of reports and documents done by Mother Jones on rear-end collisions involving Pintos reveal that if you ran into that Pinto you were following at over 30 miles per hour, the rear end of the car would buckle like an accordion, right up to the back seat. The tube leading to the gas-tank cap would be ripped away from the tank itself, and gas would immediately begin sloshing onto the road around the car. The buckled gas tank would be jammed up against the differential housing (that big bulge in the middle of your rear axle), which contains four sharp, protruding bolts likely to gash holes in the tank and spill still more gas. Now all you need is a spark from a cigarette, ignition, or scraping metal, and both cars would be engulfed in flames. If you gave that Pinto a really good whack?say, at 40 mph – chances are excellent that its doors would jam and you would have to stand by and watch its trapped passengers burn to death. In pre-production planning, engineers seriously considered using in the Pinto the same kind of gas tank Ford uses in the Capri. The Capri tank rides over the rear axle and differential housing. It has been so successful in over 50 crash tests that Ford used it in its Experimental Safety Vehicle, which withstood rear-end impacts of 60 mph. So why wasn’t the Capri tank used in the Pinto? Or, why wasn’t that plastic baffle placed between the tank and the axle – something that would have saved the life’s hundreds of people. President Semon “Bunky” Knudsen, whom Henry Ford II had hired away from General Motors, and Lee Iacocca, a spunky Young Turk who had risen fast within the company on the enormous success of the Mustang. Iacocca saying was that the Japanese were going to capture the entire American subcompact market unless Ford put out its own alternative to the VW Beetle. Bunky Knudsen said let them have the small-car market, but he lost the battle and later resigned. Iacocca became president and almost immediately began a rush program to produce the Pinto. Lee Iococca wanted that little car in the showrooms of America with the 1971 models. So he ordered his engineering vice president, Bob Alexander, to oversee what was probably the shortest production planning period in modern automotive history. The normal time span from conception to production of a new car model is about 43 months. The Pinto schedule was set at just under 25.
When it was discovered the gas tank was unsafe, did anyone go to Iacocca and tell him? “Hell no,” replied an engineer who worked on the Pinto, a high company official for many years, who, unlike several others at Ford, maintains a necessarily clandestine concern for safety. “That person would have been fired. Safety wasn’t a popular subject around Ford in those days. Whenever a problem was raised that meant a delay on the Pinto, Lee would chomp on his cigar, look out the window and say ‘Read the

NSPE Code of Ethics Case Study (Stacking Hoist)

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Introduction The Lakewood Company, a fairly large manufacturing firm, has designed, manufactured and sold hundreds of self-contained storage/retrieval systems which are used for storing heavy parts such as dies, which must intermittently be taken from storage and used elsewhere in the plant. The system consists of two large sets of storage racks, facing each other, with an integral crane that runs between them on 2 bridge crane girders on the top back edges of the storage racks (see Figure 1).
The crane has fork-lift appendages that can slip under a pallet on any of the several levels of the storage racks, retrieve a pallet off the shelf, retract the pallet into the aisle, rotate it parallel to the aisle, and move it to the end of the storage racks. The pallet is subsequently placed at the end of the aisle on the ground for pickup by a wheeled fork lift and transportation to its final destination. The Buchannan company, a large construction vehicle manufacturer, purchased one of these Lakewood “Hi-Stak” units and was using it extensively until one of their employees, West Michaels, had an accident and was seriously injured while operating the crane. (See the appended accident report written by Buchanan.) According to eye witnesses, West had retrieved a 1,460 pound die from the top shelf, and was pulling it to the end of the aisle. The load was well within the crane’s advertised limit of 2,000 pounds. The next thing West knew, as stated in the accident report, he was thrown about 20 feet. His next recollection was awakening in the hospital bed. The accident caused the crane wheels on the back side of the pallet to be pulled free of the lower flange of the A588 steel W6X12 girder on the left side. (See Figures 2 and 3).

NSPE Code of Ethics Case Study (Cypress Street Viaducts)

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Collapsed section of Cypress Street Viaduct, 1989
In October 17, 1989 the Loma Prieta earthquake hit the San Francisco Bay area, causing over $12 billion in damages and claiming 64 lives. Over half the victims were on the Cypress Street Viaduct during the quake. What follows is an overview and analysis of the disaster, with reference to the materials and design features used in the construction of the viaduct. The knowledge gained from this tragedy has benefited subsequent structures not only in the technical data that it provided but in the research that such a public disaster is bound to initiate.
History of Bridge In 1949, the design of a new highway that was to service the City of Oakland, California began; by 1957, the construction of the Nimitz Freeway, or I-880, was complete (Yashinsky, 1998). A portion of the Nimitz Freeway that linked the I-880 to the I-80, known as the Cypress Street Viaduct, was a 2 km two-tier highway with five lanes per deck, and traffic flowing at ground level. The path that the Cypress Street Viaduct was required to follow resulted in certain portions of the bridge being constructed on soft mud; in much of the area, the bedrock was over 150 m below the surface (Yashinsky, 1998). The bridge was constructed using cast-in-place concrete with multi-celled reinforced box girders that typically spanned 80 feet (Moehle, 1997). At the time of construction, the California State seismic criteria required designing for a lateral force of 0.06 times the dead load (Yashinsky, 1998). Over subsequent years there was great advancement in both construction and earthquake engineering technology, and although new technology was becoming available, the Cypress Street Viaduct was not being properly restructured to withstand a large-scale earthquake. After a 1971 earthquake in the San Fernando Valley, the State of California initiated a two-phase program to increase the resistance of highways and bridges to earthquakes: Phase 1 involved strengthening the connections between elevated road ways and their support columns; Phase 2 was to strengthen the support columns themselves (Doyle, 1989). While the structure was retrofit with cable restrainer units in 1977, Phase 2 was never carried out on the Viaduct (Yashinsky, 1998).
The Loma Prieta Earthquake

NSPE Code of Ethics Case Study (L’Ambiance Plaza)

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L’Ambiance Plaza was to be a 16 story structure with 3 parking levels and 13 apartment levels. It was composed of two offset rectangular towers, separated by a construction joint at a central elevator lobby. Each tower was approximately 63 ft x 110 ft (19.2 m x 33.5 m) in plan. Typical floor to floor height was 8 ft – 8 in. (2.64 m). The structural frame had steel columns and 7-in. (178 mm) thick post-tensioned concrete flat plate floors. The flat plate floors were designed to be constructed by the “lift slab system.” The design used unbonded plastic-sheathed post-tensioning tendons in each direction. Tendons were banded within a strip along the column lines in the east-west direction and were distributed uniformly over the width of the bay in the north-south direction. Mild steel reinforcing was limited, consisting of small mats of #5 bars in the top of theslab at each column, 2 – #4 or #5 bars along slab openings and edges, and miscellaneous bars at locations of minor extent in, or adjacent to, pour strips and shear walls. Steel channel shear collars were provided at all column locations for load transfer and lifting operations. Lateral resistance in the completed structure was provided by two shear walls in each direction in each tower. These extended to two levels below the roof. For the top two levels, lateral resistance relied on frame action with rigid joints between steel columns and post-tensioned slabs. The building was founded on spread footings intended to be on rock. Ground level was up to 2 stories higher on the north side than on the south side. The unbalanced lateral earth pressures were supported by the building foundation walls and the shear walls.
Contract Documents
The Contract Documents were prepared by an architectural firm engaged by the owner-developer of the project. The architect retained a structural engineering firm that developed the basic structural design for the project and prepared the contract structural drawings and specifications. The contract documents recognized that the structural frame would be constructed by the lift-slab method. They did not contain certain important structural requirements and details because the project specifications required the contractor who was responsible for lift-slab construction to develop the slab post-tensioning design and details and the column connection design and details. The contract drawings show the type of system intended, namely steel columns and 7-in. (178 mm) thick flat plate floors with draped unbonded post-tensioning tendons, arranged in column strip bands east-west and uniformly distributed over the bay lengths north-south. No design was provided for the required post-tensioning reinforcement. The responsibility for this was given to the Contractor. The drawings also show the size and location of large slab openings for elevators and stairs and the arrangement of shear walls and other walls that are to be cast through floor slots after the slabs are lifted. Based on a schematic typical detail, the drawings indicate that east-west post-tensioning bands may be given horizontal sweep (offset) to accommodate openings, and that certain mild steel reinforcement is to be provided around the edges of slab openings. No information is given about the specific arrangement or design of post-tensioning reinforcement at the bays that contain large openings for elevators and stairs. Again this design responsibility was given to the contractor. The structural drawings show design requirements for shear walls. A note on a drawing states that: “shear walls shall be advanced to within 3 floor levels of the slabs being lifted” during construction. A schedule of column sizes, to be reviewed by the lifting contractor and increased, if necessary for stability and strength during erection, is included on the drawings. Minimum requirements for moment transfer through lifting collars also are given

NSPE Code of Ethics Case Study (Oil Spill)

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Peter has been working with the Bigness Oil Company’s local affiliate for several years, and he has established a strong, trusting relationship with Jesse, manager of the local facility. The facility, on Peter’s recommendations, has followed all of the environmental regulations to the letter, and it has a solid reputation with the state regulatory agency. The local facility receives various petrochemical products via pipelines and tank trucks, and it blends them for resale to the private sector. Jesse has been so pleased with Peter’s work that he has recommended that Peter be retained as the corporate consulting engineer. This would be a significant advancement for Peter and his consulting firm, cementing Peter’s steady and impressive rise in the firm. There is talk of a vice presidency in a few years. One day, over coffee, Jesse starts telling Peter a story about a mysterious loss in one of the raw petrochemicals he receives by pipeline. Sometime during the 1950s, when operations were more lax, a loss of one of the process chemicals was discovered when the books were audited. There were apparently 10,000 gallons of the chemical missing. After running pressure tests on the pipelines, the plant manager found that one of the pipes had corroded and had been leaking the chemical into the ground. After stopping the leak, the company sank observation and sampling wells and found that the product was sitting in a vertical plume, slowly diffusing into a deep aquifer. Because there was no surface or groundwater pollution off the plant property, the plant manager decided to do nothing. Jesse thought that somewhere under the plant there still sits this plume, although the last tests from the sampling wells showed that the concentration of the chemical in the groundwater within 400 feet of the surface was essentially zero. The wells were capped, and the story never appeared in the press. Peter is taken aback by this apparently innocent revelation. He recognizes that state law requires him to report all spills, but what about spills that occurred years ago, where the effects of the spill seem to have dissipated? He frowns and says to Jesse, “We have to report this spill to the state, you know.” Jesse is incredulous. “But there is no spill. If the state made us look for it, we probably could not find it; and even if we did, it makes no sense whatever to pump it out or contain it in any way.” “But the law says that we have to report…,” replies Peter. “Hey, look. I told you this in confidence. Your own engineering code of ethics requires client confidentiality. And what would be the good of going to the state? There is nothing to be done. The only thing that would happen is that the company would get into trouble and have to spend useless dollars to correct a situation that cannot be corrected and does not need remediation.” “But….” “Peter, let me be frank. If you go to the state with this, you will not be doing anyone any good–not the company, not the environment, and certainly not your own career. I cannot have a consulting engineer who does not value client loyalty.” What are the ethical issues in this case? What factual and conceptual questions need to be addressed? How do you think Peter should deal with this situation?

NSPE Code of Ethics Case Study (Faulty Valve)

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Shiley, Inc., a Pfizer subsidiary, was a pioneer in artificial heart valves. From 1965 to the late 1970s, Shiley manufactured and sold artificial heart valves that never had a fracturing problem. In the 1970s it came up with a new model, the C-C, that allowed better blood flow than other models, thereby reducing the risk of blood clots. The new valve consisted on a metal ring through which blood flows, with two wire struts protruding from the ring that hold a small disk in place. The disk tilts up and down within the struts, opening and closing the valve according to the natural flow of blood. About 86,000 C-C valves have been implanted in patients. Unfortunately, about 450 fractured C-C valves have been reported so far, with nearly 300 resulting deaths. Investigators have come up with disturbing findings. Since fractures can be fatal, Shiley inspectors were told to look very carefully (through microscopes) for any evidence of cracks. Each valve was hand-built, with one strut welded to the valve’s metal ring at a much sharper angle than in earlier models. Then the wire strut was bent up and down, often several times, to insert the disk. Scratches had to be polished off to let blood flow through smoothly. If any cracks were discovered, the valve was to be rewelded or discarded. Each valve was accompanied by a card recording dates and the manufacturing operations performed. What investigators discovered was that many cards indicating rewelding were falsified. Many cards were signed off by Inspector No. 2832, an employee who had left Shiley six months before the valve was first manufactured. Investigators learned that some cracks were simply polished over rather than rewelded. Further investigation revealed skepticism about the notion that rewelding was an acceptable practice. Nancy Wilcox, a Shiley employee, testified in a Houston court case that she had talked with Cabot Corp., supplier of the metal alloy Shiley used with its struts. She reported that a Cabot official said they do not normally recommend rewelding. Shortly after this conversation, Shiley stopped rewelding, and it disposed of any valves observed to have cracks. Shiley also reduced the angel of the outlet strut, thereby making the initial weld of strut to ring easier. A 1984 internal memo written by a member of Shiley’s task force on valve fractures expressed concern about pressure on quality control inspectors to inspect valves at a rat that causes eye fatigue, increasing the probability of not noticing some defects. Pfizer apparently takes a different view. It is reported as holding that the major reason for fractures was an abnormal closure of the disk, causing it to hit the tip of one strut with too much force. Repeated striking can produce metal fatigue, ultimately resulting in a broken strut. In addressing this problem, Pfizer says that, in early 1984, it made design changes that avoided the abnormal disk closure–and that no valves with the new design have fractured. The Federal Drug Administration’s position is that no specific cause of fractures has been proven. Identify and discuss the ethical issues this case raises. Discuss the safety issues this case should raise

NSPE Code of Ethics Case Study (Glass Ceiling)

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Brenda Jones, a chemistry laboratory technician at XYZ, returned to her laboratory frustrated and angry after her meeting with her department manager, Mike Richards. She had asked for the meeting in order to discuss a job posting for a process chemist in one of XYZ’s factories. She regarded this job as a real opportunity to match her skills and abilities with her responsibilities. Brenda had been a brilliant college student, excelling in chemistry and chemical engineering. However, when she sought employment the state of the economy made it very difficult for her to find an appropriate position. She took the only job related to her field that she could find–a chemistry laboratory technician in the research laboratories at XYZ. It soon became obvious to XYZ’s research management that Brenda was capable of handling a much more demanding position. After a short time she was promoted to a chemist’s positon in XYZ’s technical service organization. She regarded becoming a process chemist as a good next step in her career. What frustrated and angered Brenda at her meeting with Mike was his flat refusal to place her name in application for the process chemist position. “Brenda,” he said, “you would find the atmosphere in a factory too demanding for you as a woman. That’s a very high-pressure job. What would you do if your kids got sick again? The factory has got to run and they wouldn’t wait for you while you stayed home to play nursemaid!” This was not the first time Mike had indicated doubts about what she could handle. Shortly after her transfer into the technical service department, Mike told Brenda that, as the only woman in the department, she would not be invited to the department’s annual off-site planning and recreational meeting. “You’d be the only woman there and I think you’d be very uncomfortable,” he said, adding that “besides, the language in the discussions sometimes gets a little rough and we wouldn’t want to subject you to that. OK?” Although too stunned to do anything but nod her assent, Brenda was very upset at Mike’s attitude, which she considered to be quite unprofessional. Even more upsetting to Brenda was Mike’s first performance appraisal of her work. During her first year in the department, Brenda had to take several consecutive days off when one of her children became seriously ill. She had done her best not to let her work assignments fall behind and had worked many extra hours after her child’s health was restored. However, during her annual appraisal, Mike had criticized her severely because of her “poor attendance record.” When she first considered whether to transfer into the technical service department, Brenda was warned by some of her co-workers that Mike Richards did not particularly like to have women working for him. But she decided to adopt a wait-and-see attitude. She was now convinced that her co-workers were right, but she was also faced with the question of what to do. She could take a grievance to XYZ’s human resource manager. But he was also male and had a reputation for giving women who complained to him a hard time. Sh might ask for a lateral transfer to another department in the research laboratories. She might try to stick it out and make the best of a frustrating situation, while keeping her eyes open for opportunities with another company. Or perhaps she could confide in someone she trusts and ask for advice. What advice might such a person give Brenda? What ethical questions does this case raise?

NSPE Code of Ethics Case Study (Side Saddle Gas Tanks)

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From mid-November 1992 through mid-February 1993, media coverage of the 1973-1987 Chevrolet and GMC pickup trucks was intense. In mid-November, two New York Times articles discussed a controversy about the fuel tank systems of 1973-1987 Chevrolet and GMC pickup trucks. These models place a gas tank on each side of the vehicle, both of which are outside the truck frame. The articles raised several important ethical questions about safety and responsibility. Although much that is contained in the articles is basically informational, the headlines of the two articles make it clear that the primary intent of the articles is to help readers address these ethical questions: “Data Show G.M. Knew for Years of Risk in Pickup Trucks’ Design;” “Despite Report that U.S. Standard Wasn’t Cutting Fatal Car Fires, Little Was Done.” Although the articles are by-lined (with Barry Meier listed as author), they are not offered as editorial opinions. Readers can expect primarily informative pieces–but perhaps with “slantings” in one direction or another. The question here is whether these articles provide readers with the sorts of relevant information they need to adequately address the ethical questions. The first headline suggests to readers that GM may have been negligent. Why, readers, may ask, did GM delay changing the location of the fuel tanks? Internal memos indicate that G.M. was trying to improve fuel tank safety as early as 1982. Yet, commenting on the change made in 1988, GM officials are credited with saying it was made for reasons of design rather than safety. Although the articles indicate that the issues are very complex, several matters are not in dispute. It is clear to all that the GM vehicles are in compliance with existing safety regulations. It is also clear to all that the redesigned models (beginning in 1988) render the gas tanks less vulnerable to damage in collisions. Various internal documents mentioned in the articles reveal that GM considered plans to relocate the gas tanks as early as 1982, but it was noted that any significant change would require a “long lead time.” The November 17 article cites a December 1983 internal GM document indicating GM’s intention to change the fuel tank’s position in 1987: “The fuel tank will be relocated inside the fram rails, ahead of the rear axle–a much less vulnerable location than today’s tanks.” According to the articles, one of GM’s aims was to come up with a plan that would enable the vehicles to withstand collisions from the side without significant fuel leakage at speeds up to 50mph–thus, far exceeding the 20mph regulation in force since 1977. In 1984 a plastic shield for the tanks was introduced, successfully, according to GM director of engineering analysis, Robert A. Sinke, Jr.–but unsuccessfully, according to Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, who refers to this as a “Band-Aid fix.” Despite introducing a redesign in 1988 that does seem to fulfill GM’s aim to withstand 50mph collisions, G.M. countered that the relocation of the gas tank was made for reasons of design than safety. Aside from questions about whether GM bore any special responsibility for past harms or deaths associated with the 1973-87 model fuel tanks, at issue were two related questions about the present. First there was the question of whether GM pickups during this period should be recalled. Second, there was the question consumers had about how safe or unsafe these vehicles are. It was reported that the National Highway Safety and Traffic Administration (NHSTA) was contemplating ordering a recall of the vehicles. One problem with this is that the vehicles were in compliance with existing regulations. So, NHSTA would be questioning the adequacy of its own regulations. GM indicated it would resist any such recall as illegal. Further, a GM attorney, Chilton Varner, was cited as saying in an interview that she believed the existing 20mph standard is adequate to protect public safety. NHSTA, however, indicated that it might consider the question of whether the 20mph standard is adequate. It might also consider whether the testing procedure itself should be changed. [The fuel tanks were presently tested by being struck with wide barriers at a 90 degree angle rather than with a narrower barrier at an oblique angle.]
Identify the ethical issues surrounding the controversy over the GM side-saddle tanks. What are the relevant facts? What factual, conceptual, and application issues are there? Some more specific issues you might address are: Given that motor vehicles will always place us at some risk, how are we to understand ‘safe’? If NHSTA is questioning its own standards, what kinds of criteria do (and should) they use? Can a product be unacceptably risky even though it satisfies current safety regulations? What does it mean to say that a design is changed that improves safety but it made for reasons of design rather than reasons of safety? Is this acceptable engineering practice? If a vehicle has an overall safety rating as good as its competitors, does it follow that it should not be required to improve any particular safety features?