{"id":6941,"date":"2018-12-23T18:19:27","date_gmt":"2018-12-23T22:19:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/?p=6941"},"modified":"2018-12-23T18:19:27","modified_gmt":"2018-12-23T22:19:27","slug":"advocates-insurers-and-property-owners-become-aware","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/2018\/12\/23\/advocates-insurers-and-property-owners-become-aware\/","title":{"rendered":"Advocates, insurers and property owners, become aware!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I initially thought <span style=\"color: #000000;\"><em>Buyer beware!<\/em>\u00a0as a title for this blog <\/span>but that would be\u00a0a poor choice of words\u00a0because you&#8217;re not at risk of being cheated when you retain a forensic expert.\u00a0 You are at risk of <em>thinking<\/em> an expert knows everything<em>.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n<p>And related,\u00a0also at risk of\u00a0misunderstanding\u00a0the tasks\u00a0a forensic expert must\u00a0carry out\u00a0in conforming to good practice when investigating a failure or accident.\u00a0 Misunderstanding leads to crankiness as experienced by a couple of my clients.<\/p>\n<p>You need to learn a little something about these tasks.\u00a0 And why s\/he must do them, and why it&#8217;s difficult to estimate the cost of some of them.\u00a0 If we follow the evidence, we don&#8217;t even know\u00a0about some of these\u00a0tasks until our boots are on the ground.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Learn something about the following:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><strong>The building or civil engineering structure involved in the expert&#8217;s work<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><strong>The stages and tasks in a forensic investigation<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Become aware of the following:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><strong>All buildings and civil engineering structures<\/strong> <\/span>in the built and natural environments have basic components that\u00a0experts can name for you.\u00a0 For example, they all have foundations, and also beams and columns.\u00a0 And do you know?\u00a0 A\u00a0structure&#8217;s basement &#8211; like your house\u00a0basement, for example, or that of a multi-story building &#8211;\u00a0is the most complicated component of all &#8211; not very glamourous, just the most complicated. (Ref. 1)<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><strong>All forensic engineering investigations<\/strong> <\/span>have basic stages and tasks that are described in simple, non-technical language on\u00a0this site and in engineering guidelines. (Refs 2, 3 and 4)\u00a0 Some examples: 1) The document-review stage, 2) The visual-examination-of-the-site stage, 3) The recording-the-as-built-condition-of-a-component state, 4) Noting the as-failed-condition-of-a-structure\u00a0stage, and 5) In a slip and fall accident, testing-the-skid-resistance-of-a-floor\u00a0stage.\u00a0 And all are\u00a0carried out to\u00a0an engineering\u00a0standard of care.<\/p>\n<p>We can estimate the cost of known tasks with varying degrees of accuracy &#8211; from easy and accurate to very difficult and quite inaccurate. (Refs 5, 6)\u00a0 It&#8217;s the unknown tasks that crop up when we follow the evidence and look\u00a0under the next rock\u00a0that cause grief for all parties involved in a dispute.<\/p>\n<p>The following <span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><strong>nice people <em>thought<\/em> I knew everything<\/strong><\/span>:<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><strong>Example #1:<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0A client was surprised that I met with a\u00a0contractor on site and charged a fee for this.\u00a0 I was there to brief the contractor on the project and\u00a0confirm how he would tackle the several stages involving different structures.\u00a0 It was somewhat of an exotic project and nowhere to be found in the engineering textbooks.\u00a0 I can specify an end result but it behoves me to\u00a0make certain\u00a0the contractor knows how to get there.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I thought you knew everything!&#8221; my client remarked.\u00a0 A nice way to be seen but we don&#8217;t know everything &#8211; we do know how to figure things out though.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><strong>Example #2:<\/strong> <\/span>Another time a client was surprised when I charged for &#8220;researching&#8221; an issue &#8211;\u00a0 safety criteria in a slip and fall accident.\u00a0 There&#8217;s little guidance in the building code\u00a0on this type of problem but\u00a0lots of literature in North America and Europe.\u00a0 I had to figure out how it applied to my particular case.\u00a0 Again, &#8220;I thought you knew everything!&#8221;.\u00a0 Nice thought.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><strong>Example #3:<\/strong> <\/span>I&#8217;m trying now to determine if the site of an old fuel oil spill is still contaminated.\u00a0 The spilling stopped about 27 years ago when the underground storage tanks were removed.\u00a0 It&#8217;s fairly easy to learn the direction the\u00a0oil\u00a0flowed when it was carried away by the groundwater.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s something else to learn where the\u00a0oil ended up and\u00a0if the\u00a0ground is still contaminated at that location.\u00a0 I\u00a0do know that <em>natural attenuation<\/em> has reduced the amount of oil in the ground but whether or not to an acceptable level is difficult to determine.<\/p>\n<p>Natural attenuation is a complex process and there&#8217;s little or no expertise\u00a0readily available\u00a0because the problem doesn&#8217;t\u00a0crop up\u00a0often.\u00a0 Should\u00a0I get compensated for trying to\u00a0find an expert\u00a0in eastern Canada, the USA or farther afield because &#8220;I don&#8217;t know everything&#8221;?<\/p>\n<p>(Natural attenuation\u00a0involves microorganisms in soil eating the oil &#8211; it&#8217;s food to them.\u00a0 There are five\u00a0processes in natural attenuation but this is\u00a0a main one)<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><strong>Example #4:<\/strong> <\/span>Somewhat related were the geotechnical investigations I carried out for new wharf and breakwater construction in harbours on Canada&#8217;s east coast.\u00a0 About 27 investigations over several years.\u00a0 My clients wouldn&#8217;t cover my expenses to travel to a harbour and reconnoiter conditions before estimating the cost of the work.<\/p>\n<p>For example, reconnoiter the sea conditions we had to work in &#8211; sometimes quite exposed and dangerous -, investigate coastal conditions from which we had to launch a barge with a drill rig onboard, and check out the possible foundation soil conditions as exposed along the coast.<\/p>\n<p>Surely I would not be expected to &#8220;know everything&#8221; about a harbour without seeing it and talking with the local fishermen?\u00a0 And surely It&#8217;s not unreasonable to charge a fee\u00a0for this?<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><strong>***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>When I suggest you learn a little something, I don&#8217;t mean you should learn a lot and pass a test.\u00a0 Just gain some understanding\u00a0and become aware of the tasks an expert must carry out, and to the standard of care for the time and place.<\/p>\n<p>The recent case, <span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><strong>Example #1<\/strong><\/span>,\u00a0where I met the contractor on site consisted of seven big tasks.\u00a0 Three quite large, different tasks plus three less-big tasks that prepared site conditions\u00a0for a main task.\u00a0 The main task also had\u00a0a poorly defined scope that made\u00a0matters worse.\u00a0 All big tasks with expertise in the area but none that are done on even a half yearly basis, year after year.\u00a0 And when the seven tasks were lumped together, this type of seven-big-task project was unusual for this area.<\/p>\n<p>I would hardly expect you to learn much about a project like this but learn something and that it&#8217;s demanding of an expert&#8217;s time, including figuring-out and occasional research time.<\/p>\n<p>Learn a little something about &#8220;<em>the nature and methods of forensic engineering investigation<\/em>&#8221; like it says in the masthead of this blog site.\u00a0 Also the structure(s) involved and its components.\u00a0 Forensic experts can give you a good understanding in most cases, except\u00a0when we&#8217;ve got\u00a0to follow the evidence and don&#8217;t know what we&#8217;re going to find until we get there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>References<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Swinton, Michael, NRC-IRC and Kesik, Ted, PhD, University of Toronto, <em>Performance Guidelines for Basement Envelope Systems and Materials,<\/em> Research Report 199, pp 185, National Research Council, Canada October 2005<\/li>\n<li><em>Steps in the Forensic Engineering Investigative Process With an Appendix on Costs<\/em>.\u00a0 Posted July 15, 2013<\/li>\n<li>American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), <em>Guidelines for Failure Investigation<\/em>, 1989<\/li>\n<li>Janney, Jack R., <em>Guide to Investigation of Structural Failure<\/em>, ASCE, 1986<\/li>\n<li><em>Difficulty Estimating the Cost of Forensic Engineering Investigation<\/em>.\u00a0 Posted July 23, 2013<\/li>\n<li><em>Why the Difficulty Estimating the Cost of Forensic Engineering Investigation?\u00a0<\/em> Posted September 1, 2013<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>Bibliography<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Lewis, Gary L., <em>Guidelines for forensic engineering practice<\/em>, ed., ASCE 2003<\/li>\n<li><em>A Bundle of Blogs: How to Manage the Cost of Civil Litigation Involving Experts<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0 Posted August 31, 2017<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I initially thought Buyer beware!\u00a0as a title for this blog but that would be\u00a0a poor choice of words\u00a0because you&#8217;re not at risk of being cheated when you retain a forensic expert.\u00a0 You are at risk of thinking an expert knows &hellip; 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