huangyhg

red flagging jobs
ok... have a disagreement going on here... need some professional input.
the question is, is there anyone other than the local building official, legally, who can red flag - issue a stop work order - to a particular construction job?
mike mccann
mmc engineering
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according to many of the states' licensing laws, a professional engineer is required to protect the public safety. however, in practical terms this usually means that the professional engineer should bring the unsafe condition to the attention of the building owner, and then if the danger is not alleviated it should be brought to the attention of the construction official.
you can well imagine that reporting of this kind can be a delicate situation, so be certain that you are correct.
depends on what you mean by a stop work order as well. generally, contracts allow the owner to stop work if need be, and the contractor in question can stop work. osha may be able to legally stop work as well, not sure about that.
the contract is between the owner and contractor, either party to the contract may stop the work at any time for any reason. on many public projects, the owners representative is the engineer and he can legally shut down the job. code enforcement officers can only stop the work for code violations.
mike, when you say legally, are you asking about who is empowered by law? if so, i would say only the building official and a judge have that power. when a zoning violation, or even a public nuisance is being pursued, only an injunction can legally stop someone from doing something. i took people to court many times to seek compliance and unless the judge ordered them to stop, they would pay the fine and i would have to refile charges.
the only exception i am away of the power of the bulding official. even then, that is limited. there has to be a serious hazard and i would go so far as to say an imminent danger, before i sign a stop work order. a possible exception would be if a partial plan approval were issued, say a foundation start, and framing is starting and the truss drawings had not been submitted, then i may stop work. but even the building may be okay so i would probably talk to the design professional to determine where the submittal is.
perhaps a better example would be seeing concrete strength reports on a concrete frame building with consistently low 28 and 56 day breaks. i again would discuss the issues with the design professional before issuing a stop work order, even then, if they have a logical corecction plan and are doing it, i would give them the benefit of the doubt.
on the otherhand, a contractor who argues every inspection, a design professional who was not retained for construction administration, and a property owner taking a hand off approach, i would probably given them a 30 day notice before shutting the job.
the reason for all this hesitancy is the reality that the parties will cry to the elected officials, or cry to the media, and even if you are dead right, you will spent a lot of time explaining a very technical subject ot lay people with an agenda to make a government official look bad.
from a contractual basis, i recall aia contracts typically had strong language that the owner could stop work but it has been years since i ran a large job with a decent contract.

don phillips
here's an interesting article:
my company has a stop work policy that allows any and all of its employees to stop work at any of its job sites or facilities based on safety issues, even those where subcontractors/outside hires are present. it works in accordance with the company's outlined environmental health and safety policies, and specifies that retaliatory action cannot be taken against the employee for stopping the work, as long as it is a legitimate complaint.
ae's are generally relunctant to stop work because of legal claims that can come out of it. you are generally better off reporting the condition to the owner and contractor (and building official if need be) and let them decide how to handle it. in other words, just report your findings.
there may be a different course of action required if you are part of the contracter, construction manager, design-builder, owner, etc.
slta: great site!
hg

you can always stop your own work and the work of those hired by you, but cannot stop another contractor working under contract to the owner, unless the owner has given you explicit authority to act as their agent. however, as jike said, by all means speak up if you see something unsafe going on.

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