There's always "the rest of the story" and probaably even more after Paul Harvey clears everything up. We recently had a tower crane collapse that damaged a couple of buildings and killed one resident. Interestingly enough the operator rode the crane down and came out unhurt. The knee jerk reaction of the media was to point the finger at the operator. The Legislature's knee jerk reaction to public opinion driven by the media was to create new laws regulating crane operators. Today we find out that the investigation points to a foundation designed to support 25% of the expected loading, most of which I presume, not knowing these things for certain, would be the weight of the crane and tower. So now the media finger is being pointed at the GC and the engineering firm that designed the foundations (an atypical design, by the way, according to the press).
On 5/14/07, Paul Sincaglia <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I read the quick article and want to add some thoughts. For most of us FM represents and insurance company who has a dedicated staff of engineers who review facilities, usually the facilities they are insuring, and make recommendations. However, one must keep in mind that those recommendations are not "requirements"....at least not from FM. That said, we as designers tend to view them as mandatory because our clients say that they have to follow FM. The truth is that they actually don't! The only thing anybody has to do is follow the law....and the rules established for code enforcement in that jurisdiction. Let me explain. Unlike an AHJ who has law and code to enforce. FM, as a company, uses their internal standards (data sheets) to guide their assessment process. Their engineers visit a site, perform assessment and then write reports and try to guide the owners to comply with their requests...but these are not mandatory. Owners may weigh the request to comply against any credit they may get back in the form of insurance premiums breaks etc. Even the best facilities get recommendations every year...but in many cases enacting a recommendations would mean no change in premiums, so unless there is some moral desire on the part of the corporate folks to make the changes, many go year after year without a change. Other times, your entire insurance program could hinge on compliance with the standards. Often times there seems like there is little ryme or reason to it...but it all boils down to how the insurance business addresses risk and how much risk the owner is taking. But the bottom line being FM as an insurer takes risks...they use the engineers to help them assess and manage that risk...but it is still risk they are assuming....That is the whole point of an insurance policy. However, in this case it appears as though the FM engineers may have been working as consultants. In such a role they performed an assessment and evidently did not properly assess the risk and the other insurance companies relied on those assessments with regard to making their policies and assessing their risks. Obviously something big was missed and as a result the engineers have been found to be liable. This is no different than any of you who perform assessments and give recommendations to clients. If you do that kind of work and after that bad things happen, you can be sued. Bottom line...we don't know the details and I am sure that there is a host of mitigating evidence (contracts, letters, reports, etc). that connect FM to the other insurance companies and in them are representations by FM on the adequacy of the protection for this facility. Ooops! But I don't say it with any sarcasm in my voice tone. It is for precisely this kind of thing that we all should have errors and ommisions insurance. Paul Sincaglia, P.E. Firesafety Solutions, Inc. _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list [email protected] http://lists.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum To Unsubscribe, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Put the word unsubscribe in the subject field)
-- Ron Greenman at home.... _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list [email protected] http://lists.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum To Unsubscribe, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Put the word unsubscribe in the subject field)
