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A monthly publication from the Wisconsin Society of Professional Engineers
June 2008 Edition
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| 3. | WSPE Legislative Committee Update |
| 4. | Strict Liability Risks When Designing Dangerous Products By Attorney Robert J. Kay |
| 5. | Welcome New WSPE Members |
WSPE's President's Corner |
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As I write my last President’s Message, I look out at the beautiful view my family is privileged to enjoy from our new home, and I am thankful for all that my career has provided thus far. I am also thankful for professional societies like WSPE, whose dedicated members help look out for our interests as engineers and ensure that our profession continues to be valued for the unique services we provide rather than getting reduced to a commodity. As has been the case throughout history, engineers and scientists are at the forefront for finding solutions to many of the challenges and problems faced around the world. As the population continues to grow and strain the planet’s capacity to support various activities, the knowledge and skills of these professionals will become ever more important and valuable. One of the issues WSPE has been involved with this year is that of mandatory continuing professional competency (CPC), which recognizes that the body of engineering and scientific knowledge continues to grow at a prodigious pace, and it is essential that practicing engineers keep current in their areas of expertise. The WSPE Legislative Committee, under the direction of Vice President Tracy Pinkowski, P.E., and Committee Chair Bob Givens, P.E., continues to work hard to develop recommendations to offer to the Wisconsin Department of Regulation and Licensing as they begin to create the new CPC requirements. WSPE members are encouraged to contact Bob at bob.givens@omnni.com with input on this process with the goal of developing requirements that provide true value without being overly burdensome. In addition to having practicing engineers stay current in their fields, the world needs more engineers and scientists to tackle the growing list of challenges. A new initiative is being launched in Wisconsin called STEM7, which is aimed at increasing interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. STEM7 will be spearheaded by Engineers and Scientists of Milwaukee (ESM) under their new Executive Director, Van Walling, P.E. It is intended to be a clearinghouse for STEM programs in the seven-county Southeastern Wisconsin area, with a goal of maximizing the return on investments in time and resources and reducing duplication of programs. Van has been very active in developing this initiative and hopes it will quickly become useful throughout the entire state. You can learn more by reading an article in the June 1, 2008 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel at http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=756875. Speaking of STEM, I want to congratulate the 2008 Wisconsin MATHCOUNTS team for their performance at the National Competition in early May. The team finished 22nd overall, which is very respectable considering the high caliber of the competitors. The team consisted of Killian Kvalvik (8th Grade – Odyssey/Magellan Charter School, Appleton), Abraham Shin (8th Grade – Velma Hamilton Middle School, Madison), William Xiang (7th Grade – Velma Hamilton Middle School), Laura Xu (8th Grade – Thomas Jefferson Middle School, Madison), Coach Loi Nguyen (Velma Hamilton Middle School), and chaperone Darwin Behlke, P.E. Thanks again to everyone who helps make this program possible! I want to conclude by thanking this year’s State Officers: President Elect Michael Lefebvre; Vice Presidents Matt Richards, Tracy Pinkowski, John Parisi, and Chad O’Donnell; Secretary Chris Stamborski; Past President Robb Peebles; and National Delegate Glen Schwalbach. I look forward to working with them again during the next term in their new positions, along with Angie Hanz as incoming Secretary. We will need help from all WSPE members to move forward with our various programs, so please contact Nancy Short at n.short@wspe.org to let her know you are interested in helping. An Officer or Committee Chair will follow up with you. We also need all members to encourage their colleagues to join WSPE so we can expand our presence and influence as we pursue our mission of professional licensure and ethics and help to develop the next generation of engineers. It has been a pleasure leading WSPE for the past year, and I thank you for placing your trust in me. Have a safe and enjoyable summer! James Buggs, P.E. |
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MATHCOUNTS National Competition: Celebrating 25 Years! |
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Shin commented that on two problems he knew the correct answer, but in the heat of competition, used the Korean format for fractions. In Korean, the numerator is in the bottom and the denominator on top. Now I know why in the National Countdown Round some of the Mathletes® have given the answer as a fraction, but the inverse. English has been Shin’s second language for only two years. Another award won by Kvalvik was the Repeat Award for competing at National for the second time. Only 38 Mathletes® received the Repeat Award. The Texas team, consisting of Bobby Shen of Sugarland, Kevin Tian of Austin, Ding Zhou of Houston, Kevin Li of College Station, and coach Jeff Boyd of Sugarland, placed first. The Washington team took second place, and the Maryland team took third. Darryl Wu of Bellevue, Washington won the National Championship when Bobby Shen of Texas dropped to second place in the Countdown Round (CDR). Wu is the youngest Mathlete® to win the National Championship. He is a six grader at Lakeside School. The CDR was webcasted live. A replay of the Webcast is available at www.mathcounts.org. Shen won the Masters Round by making the best presentation on balancing weights. He also won the Written Round. The New York team won the Best Spirit Award. Go to www.mathcounts.org and click on “2008 National Competition Winners” for a list of the top 20 teams and the Countdown Round results. Since this was the 25th Awards Banquet, the MATHCOUNTS Foundation awarded eight engineers the “IN RECOGNITION OF 25 YEARS OF EXEMPLARY SERVICE” award. Darwin Behlke, P.E., of the Southeast Chapter, was one of the eight engineers recognized. During the Award Banquet, Robert J. Stevens, Chairman, President & CEO of Lockheed Martin, spoke on the Orion Mission and showed a video on the 210-day mission to the Moon in preparation for the first manned flight to Mars. For relaxation after a day of competition, the Mathletes® were bussed to the Denver Museum. Our team was fascinated with a video game about who could swat the most moths; some flew slowly, others flew fast. They liked the pre-historic exhibits of dinosaurs, the panorama exhibits of wildlife, the surround computer-generated video of “Flying with Astronauts,” and the Egyptian exhibit with a real dead mummy. Saturday the Mathletes® went with their parents to see the 16th Street Mall (downtown), the Aquarium, the Zoo, or the Museum. At the Coordinators Meeting, I commented on the fact that the coaches like the single-volume handbook. Joe stated that MATHCOUNTS sent out 42,000 copies of Volume I and about 9,000 copies of Volume II. MATHCOUNTS is being green about not putting 33,000 copies in recycling baskets and is aware of the cost of printing and mailing. Less than 1,000 teachers requested the free Volume II. Another 8,000 coaches received a copy of Volume II after they registered their school. They are working with The Art of Problem Solving to put all 25 years of problems on the Web site. End of 2008 is the target date for availability. The 2009 National Competition will take place in Orlando on May 8, 2009. After working together for two months, the team members became a close group of friends. To tell you how close, they threw a surprise birthday party for Abraham’s 14th birthday after the Awards Banquet. I was surprised to see the decorations. Abraham was overjoyed with the birthday surprise. Wisconsin had another successful National Competition because the team did their best and had fun doing it. Everybody had a great time because we are hooked on math! All the Mathletes® and coaches received a TI-Nspire™ from Texas Instruments. During the Written Competition, parents could attend a seminar by Richard Rusczyk on “Life After MATHCOUNTS.” The PowerPoint slides can be found at www.artofproblemsolving.com. -Darwin Behlke, P.E.
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The
25th National Competition was held at the Marriott Denver Tech Center
on May 9, 2008. The Wisconsin team, consisting of Abraham Shin of
Velma Hamilton Middle School, Laura Xu of Thomas Jefferson Middle
School, Killian Kvalvik of Odyssey Magellan Middle School, and William
Xiang of Velma Hamilton Middle School, placed 22nd among 56 teams.
The team was coached by Loi Nguyen of Velma Hamilton Middle School.
Kvalvik had the highest individual score for the team, as he placed
17th. Next was Shin, who placed 45th. To show the intensity of the
competition, the difference of the 28 places was 4 points. 
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WSPE Legislative Committee Update |
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| The Legislative Committee held a conference call on May 22, 2008. Charles Kopplin, P.E., Board Member of the Engineer Section of the Department of Regulation and Licensing, also joined us on the call to discuss the implementation of continuing education requirements for Professional Engineers. WSPE has committed to spearhead a working group to develop the requirements. A letter soliciting interest to be part of this group will be sent out to various engineering organizations within the next few weeks. If you are part of another organization that would like to be involved in this process, please contact Brad Volker, P.E., at bvolker@cooperengineering.net or 715-234-7008. -Tracy Pinkowski, P.E. |
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Strict Liability Risks When Designing
Dangerous Products |
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| In October of last year, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals was asked to review a Milwaukee County Circuit Court decision dismissing a defective design claim. The claim was brought by Rubin Baez Godoy in the case entitled Godoy v. E.I. DuPont De Nemours and Co., asserting defective design claims in both strict liability and negligence against the manufacturers of white-lead-carbonate pigment. The case was decided on the issue of whether Godoy’s complaint sufficiently alleged that the lead-carbonate pigment was defectively designed. The Circuit Court of Milwaukee County ruled that it did not. The Court of Appeals agreed. Godoy alleged that he suffered “lead poisoning by ingesting white lead carbonate derived from intact accessible painted surfaces, paint chips, paint flakes and dust” in an apartment rented by his family. Paint manufacturers and manufacturers of the white-lead-carbonate were sued by Godoy, but the paint manufacturers were the subject of a different lawsuit, Thomas ex rel. Gramling v. Mallett, which held that a plaintiff alleging lead-based paint injury need not specify the responsible manufacturer. Godoy did not allege that the defendants helped the paint manufacturers formulate the white lead-based paint, but Godoy asserted that the manufacturers intended that the white-lead-carbonate be used in paint. Godoy asserted that the manufacturers of the carbonate knew that it was dangerous when used in paint but lied about it. The Milwaukee Circuit Court ruled that “lead is an inherent characteristic of white lead carbonate” and that it could not be designed without using lead. In response to Godoy’s contention that a white paint pigment could have been made using zinc instead of lead, the Circuit Court observed that a “design decision” to use zinc would result in “white-zinc carbonate,” not white-lead carbonate. The issue before both the Circuit Court and the Court of Appeals was whether a product can be said to be defectively designed when that design is inherent in the nature of the product so that an alternative design would make the product something else. Wisconsin case law allows plaintiffs to seek recovery from a manufacturer for the defective design of a product both under a strict liability theory and a negligence theory. The Court of Appeals noted that in order for a defective design to render a product unreasonably dangerous, the defect must be hidden from the ordinary consumer and not an open and obvious defect in the product. The Court of Appeals went on to observe that the converse is not true: “Something that is an ‘open and obvious’ danger does not necessarily mean that the danger results from a design defect.” Godoy was contending that no matter how white-lead carbonate pigment could be designed, it is defective. The Court of Appeals disagreed. The American Law Institute, which continually studies issues of law and formulates appropriate legal rules for use in jurisdictions of the United States who desire to adopt them, developed a products liability rule which states in part:
The Court held that under that legal rule, “there are two alternative routes to holding a raw materials supplier liable for damages caused by a product that uses the raw material and causes harm because the product is defective: (1) the component, itself, is defective; or (2) the component supplier ‘substantially participates in the integration of the component into the design of the product.’” Godoy did not assert that the defendants participated in the integration of the white-lead carbonate into paint, and Godoy’s lawyer told the Circuit Court that there was a use for white lead carbonate in plastics. Therefore, the Court of Appeals turned to the first requirement to examine whether the component was by itself “defective” as that term was used in the above-stated rule of law. The Court held that the only possible definition of “defective” that could be applicable to Godoy’s case was subsection (b), which requires that “the foreseeable risk of harm posed by the product could have been reduced or avoided by the adoption of a reasonable alternative design.” The Court concluded that there was no alternative design to make the white-lead carbonate without using lead and therefore dismissed Godoy’s complaint. The court held: “The bottom line here, as recognized by the circuit court, is that one cannot make white-lead carbonate without using lead.” Thus, according to the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, manufacturers who are makers of dangerous component products that may, when integrated into another product, result in a defectively dangerous product, are not liable in strict liability for injury caused by the integrated product as long as they do not participate in the integration of the component into the design or manufacture of the integrated product. However, review of its decision is pending before the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Attorney Robert J. Kay is the senior partner in the law firm of Kay & Andersen, S.C. and devotes his time to representing professional engineers, architects, contractors, material suppliers and owners of construction projects. Please feel free to contact him at (608) 833-0077 or visit www.kayandandersen.com. |
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Welcome New WSPE Members |
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The WSPE board of directors would like to extend a heartfelt welcome to the following new WSPE members:
New members contribute to the growth, strength and leadership of the WSPE in enhancing its recognition as a leading voice for Professional Engineers throughout Wisconsin and promoting excellence in engineering. |
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