Standard of Care: The Boundary of Negligence

Standard of Care: The Boundary of Negligence

"Without negligence, there is no professional liability." - Josh Kardon

SMALL FIRM FORUM
Thursday, November 2, Noon - 1:30 PM
AIA East Bay
1405 Clay Street
Oakland 94612

AIA East Bay allied member Joshua B. Kardon, SE (www.jbkse.com) has studied and written widely about standards of care. He will discuss the subject in some depth. We hope you will attend to learn where the slippery boundary between negligence and non-negligence exists.

Architects provide their services in an environment of uncertainty and variability. They make their recommendations based on judgments that arise from their own individual experience and education. Because of this, there is a wide variation in architect services and work products. When a project fails to achieve its intended goals or results in injury to people or property, the architect can be deemed negligent and held accountable for damages caused by those failures. If the failures which occur because of the architect's performance within the accepted range of variability, the architect may not be held liable. In that instance, the error is not "beneath the standard of care" and is therefore not negligent.

Without professional negligence, there is no professional liability. So where does that boundary lie? In other word, what it the "standard of care"? While you ponder this question, you might read an interesting article on the subject in the AIA newsletter at: www.aia.org/aiarchitect/thisweek06/0804/bp_risk.cfm.

Bring a brown bag lunch. Beverages will be provided. 1.5 CES/LU.

As usual, our December meeting will be our annual holiday luncheon. Details next month.

For more information: contact Miltiades Mandros at 510.6543.800.