I was troubled by the title of a Webinar recently, “Resilient Design and the Evolving Standard of Care”. Phew! That was quite a statement and just not true. The Standard of Care is not evolving.
It’s a serious error. There are now many participants in the Webinar who have gone on their way believing the Standard of Care is evolving. It’s also serious for law firms and insurance firms who have been led to believe this.
To give the Webinar chair person credit the Webinar was detailed and quite well presented. However, mistakes can be well presented. In this case it didn’t reflect input by a suitably experienced design engineer.
The Standard of Care is defined by the reasonable person, a concept recognized in law since 1890. (Ref. 1) The design engineer is the reasonable person in this case. You can read about the concept in layman’s language. (Ref. 2)
I asked the chair person about this. I was referred to a firm who said they reviewed the Webinar. With all due respect, obviously the reviewer was not a suitably qualified engineer. This type of reviewer is out there – well qualified but not qualified to review a Webinar like this. I know two well respected, experienced engineers who when asked didn’t know anything about the Standard of Care.
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Engineers design structures to stand up to the planned use and the effects of live and dead loads thrown at the structure by Mother Nature, climate change and man. These loads change with time and where you’re at in the world. The design process doesn’t change. (Ref. 3)
(The weight of a person walking across a floor is a live load. It comes and it goes. The weight of the floor is a dead load. It’s always there. The pressure of the wind on the deck of a suspension bridge is a live load. The weight of the deck is a dead load)
Design engineers assess these changes the best they can, like reasonable people do. We’ve been doing this for a long time, all the way back to the pyramids and earlier.
Someone coined the term resilient design to reflect the changes taking place today. That’s great. For example, wharf decks in harbours are now being designed and constructed higher because of rising sea levels. How much higher? The reasonable design engineer with the Department of Public Works assesses this change today the best s/he can based on the available data, just like in the past. Call it resilient design if you like but the design process by the reasonable engineer doesn’t change.
More examples: Sea coasts are being designed to resist greater erosion. Tall chimneys and the decks of suspension bridges are being designed for greater wind loads. Highway cut and fill-slopes are being designed for changes in rainfall and groundwater level. Road pavements are being designed by engineers for heavier traffic – and also to work as solar panels. Roofs in Florida are being designed for snow loads.
I could go on but surely you get the picture. We engineers deal with what Mother Nature throws at us, best we can with the data available, like engineers always have.
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Nor has the characteristics of a reasonable person changed – the type of person who defines the Standard of Care. And these characteristics don’t change from one profession, vocation and trade to another. It’s the person who exercises the: (Refs 1, 2)
- Degree of attention
- Knowledge
- Intelligence
- Judgement
that society requires of it’s members for the protection of their own and of others’ interests.
The reasonable person:
- Acts sensibly
- Does things without serious delay, and,
- Takes proper but not excessive precautions
These characteristics of a reasonable person and what a reasonable person does are not evolving. Hence nor is the Standard of Care – not in pre-resilient engineering design, not in resilient engineering design now, nor in the future.
I didn’t see any data from hard science in the Webinar that evaluated the characteristics of a reasonable person and what the reasonable person does. Nor any conclusions from empirical science. No data to indicate the characteristics are changing and the reasonable person is doing something different. No data that would support the claim that the Standard of Care is changing.
(Hard science is based on field and laboratory testing. Empirical science is based on subjective observation)
The engineering design process is not changing either. We still assess the loads on a structure based on the data available and design the structure to withstand these loads. Climate change is throwing different loads at our structures but we reasonable design engineers still assess the loads based on the data available.
Reasonable people make mistakes in assessing the loads on structures in the built and natural environments. Mistakes like they did in the past and will today courtesy of Mother Nature and climate change. Making a mistake doesn’t change the characteristics of a reasonable person defining the Standard of Care.
There wasn’t any indication in the outline of the Webinar where it does say how this happens, nor in the review of the planned Webinar by the engineering firm before it went live. It’s a shame this unsubstantiated point of review is out there. Insurance firms and law firms are certain to get in trouble as a result.
References
- Garner, Bryan E., Editor in Chief, Black’s Law Dictionary, West, 2011
- A Bundle of Blogs: On Assessing the Standard of Care. A compilation of five blogs on the standard of care. Posted by Eric E. Jorden, M.Sc., P.Eng. August 12, 2022
- Everything You Need to Ace Science in One Big Fat Notebook, Workman Publishing, New York 2016
Posted by Eric E. Jorden, M.Sc., P.Eng. Consulting Professional Engineer and Forensic Engineer, Geotechnology Ltd., Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, January 29, 2026 ejorden@eastlink.ca