As multiple nor’easters bore down on the East Coast in the last 10 weeks, architects and engineers worried about more than the physical impact to their projects. The storms also brought an increasing concern about the liability risks of failing to prepare for climate change and sea-level rise.
While designers have an ethical obligation to exercise the appropriate “standard of care” when advising clients, it is unclear how that legal standard applies to design choices that could be affected by climate change. Every state has its own case law and statutes of repose setting deadlines when designers are no longer liable for design failures. The Trump administration added to the murkiness last August when it moved to strip climate considerations from infrastructure planning guidelines.