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Legally-trained people adjudicating mechanical engineering maintenance issues

Tennyson Ndemera
What professional recommendation can a judge (non-engineer) give in an engineering dispute when these are totally different fields?  Shouldn't engineering disputes be settled by engineers only?  Legally trained people do not bring anything to the table in an engineering dispute.  Engineering is a specialised field which takes years to master in both the training and worldly experience and the idea that a legally trained person can just come into the dispute and resolve it within a few hours or days is not the right way to do things don't you think?  The building blocks for engineering are maths, science and engineering drawing which people in the legal fraternity hardly understand.

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    Good morning Tennyson, 

    you're 100% right.

    Everything you listed is definitely true. Neither a judge nor a lawyer can take an engineering decision into their hands and of course the opposite can be done by no engineer (only legal and engineering laws and engineering ethics).
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    If there is an issue, it is generally because there has been a contract between two parties, either formal or implied, and the legally trained people are experts at contract law. They will rely on independent experts for the technical input. Without knowing the details of any particular issue it is not possible to be more specific.
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    What proportion of engineering disputes don't include:
    • Contractual issues where there is a disagreement over what the product was supposed to do, and whether it complies with the specification?

    • Legal issues regarding the rights of the customer, compliance with safety regulations, and the like?


    It wouldn't surprise me at all if the legal team got involved.  Trying to argue that the other party isn't allowed to bring in a legal expert because it's an "engineering dispute" will get you nowhere.
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    What professional recommendation can a judge (non-engineer) give in an engineering dispute when these are totally different fields?




    He or she can advise and judge on the legislation that covers that branch of engineering -  for example what constitutes due diligence, if laws were broken, liability, awarding of damages or not.


    For technical matters, one or more expert witnesses will translate the hard science into something more digestible. The detail of the judgement will depend on the evidence presented during that process.

    Do you have a real example ?


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    This is very close to home to me, I do get asked to consider the legal compliance of changes to mechanical maintenance issues. I am not a mechanical engineer, nor am I always an expert in the systems involved. So how do I do it? Because in my field (and in many safety critical fields) there are legal requirements for the process for managing the change. The organisation proposing the change has to demonstrate to me that the right people were involved in considering the impact of that change, that they covered the range of competence required, that a structured process was used for capturing all potential hazards and managing them, that the impact on other systems was considered, etc etc etc. If the process was clearly followed to the letter of the law then I will sign it off, it it wasn't I won't. If I have any doubt as to whether they have followed best practice in a specific engineering area I'll be looking for an independent engineering expert opinion in that field. 


    So building on the excellent responses above, I'd add that if there is a safety issue involved you can turn this around: engineers shouldn't adjudicate on that unless they at least have a strong understanding of the relevant laws - and some legal training helps.


    There's very good reasons why this methodology exists in many parts of the world and many engineering fields now. Engineers do make mistakes because it is very easy for us to get too close to the problem. I've certainly done it myself, and we know this problem has led to some very major incidents (polite way of saying killing hundreds of people). So across safety related industries a standard process has developed (and is still developing) for making sure the engineers involved are thinking through all the consequences of their change, particularly the famous "unknown unknowns" - for example the bizarre behaviours of maintainers or members of the public that experienced engineers wouldn't even have considered were credible. Checking whether this process has been followed is actually pretty straightforward once you understand it. It's down to the experienced engineers to implement their part of the process, then if there's an accident the judge will want them to prove that they did implement it, and that they and their team had the correct engineering competence to do so. 


    (Ok, so how does a judge know an engineering team was competent? Which is a very good question. Well, in my field in the EU (writing this on Thursday!) it's because someone like me is expected to have assessed them. But it's also why professional registration is useful...)


    Pet subject of mine as you might have guessed! And this is only the briefest of overviews, I deliver two day courses on this stuff that still barely scratch the surface...


    Interesting question,


    Andy

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