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The Case for a Legal Studies Curriculum in Engineering

For presentation at the 2006 Annual AIChE Meeting, San Francisco, CA. The Case for a Legal Studies Curriculum in Engineering. Presentation Availability. Copies of the accompanying manuscript are available from the speaker

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The Case for a Legal Studies Curriculum in Engineering

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  1. Forpresentation at the 2006 Annual AIChE Meeting, San Francisco, CA The Case for a Legal Studies Curriculum in Engineering

  2. Presentation Availability • Copies of the accompanying manuscript are available from the speaker • Electronic versions of the slides and manuscript are available at http://mhigh.okstate.edu

  3. Definition & Nomenclature • Technical Professionals – includes, but not limited to, physical scientists, life scientists, engineers, technologists, architects. • LSE – Legal Studies in Engineering

  4. Why a LSE Curriculum? • Engineers constantly encounter legal issues in their careers • Daily encounters with contracts, regulations, employment issues • Less frequent, but more critical, encounters with depositions and court proceedings • “Sending an engineer into the workforce with no legal training is like sending him or her out without learning calculus” – OSU CEAT Associate • Engineers make excellent attorneys and our society desperately needs more technically astute lawyers.

  5. LSE Program Goals • Our goals IS NOT to morph good engineers into bad want-a-be lawyers • Incorporate instructional materials that prepare students for the ever expanding role of legal issues into science and engineering practice; • Aid the learning of science, technology, engineering and mathematics by placing those disciplines in the context of the legal responsibilities imposed by society; • Address directly the important opportunity and need of educating future technical professionals on the role of the law in technology endeavors; and, • Produce materials that students and practicing professionals find useful in practice.

  6. What do we teach in LSE? • One broad-based course – “Soup-to-nuts” • Three topical courses relevant to technical professionals • Intellectual Property • Environmental Law • Products Liability

  7. How do we teach LSE? • Soup-to-nuts course is based on Cynthia M. Gayton, Richard C. Vaughn, Legal Aspects of Engineering, 7th ed., Kendall-Hunt Publishing Co., Dubuque, IA (2004). • Topical Courses are based on law school level case books • Students have responded extremely favorably to use of case books even though the amount of reading is significantly more than in traditional engineering courses • The legal education Socratic method based on case law is heavily used. • Students discuss cases with the instructor and themselves to learn the points of law

  8. ENGR 4123: Products Liability Law for Technical Professionals • Overview of federal and state court systems • Overview of products liability liability • Negligence • Tortuous Misrepresentation • Warranties • Strict Liability • Defects • Manufacturing Defects • Design Defects • Warning Defects • What Technical Professionals can do to identify defects • Causation • Cause in fact • Proximate cause • Defenses

  9. Example Case: Hollister v. Dayton Hudson Corp. 201 F.3d 731 (6th Cir. 2000) • Facts • Trial court granted Defendant summary judgment; Plaintiff appealed. • Women was severely burned when her shirt ignited upon contact with electric burner • Experts A opined that fabric was unreasonably flammable (fabric was 100 % rayon, loosely woven with 1.5 denier threads) • Expert A tested exemplar fabrics and showed that fabric ignited instantly and shirt consumed completely within six seconds. • Expert B offered no opinion to use of different fabric • Fabric passed Consumer Products Safety commission minimum tests for flammability • Legal Issue • Was the shirt unreasonably dangerous, or • did the shirt fail to carry a warning as to its extreme flammability? • Legal Rule • Plaintiff must establish that 1) the product was sold in a defective condition, and 2) defect caused her injury • Conclusion • Product not itself defective • Prima facie case established that lack of adequate warnings made the product defective • Case should have gone to jury on defective warning cause of action

  10. What do Technical Professionals learn from this exercise? • How their decisions are scrutinized in our legal system • The role they play in • preventing damages and resulting litigation • expert opinions in litigation and litigation support, and • developing legal doctrine and social policies.

  11. Summary • Legal issues will be a pervasive, constant companion in a technical professional’s career, so, at minimum, a glib awareness of legal issues is required. • Students conversant in basic legal terminology have a market advantage in employment. • Engineers make excellent lawyers – and we need more excellent legal practitioners.

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