Your firm prepared design drawings to explain to a client what an outdoor gazebo at a restaurant would look like. There were no notation son the drawings that they were for design only and not for construction. The client gave those drawings to a carpenter who was doing work on the interior of this new restaurant. The carpenter constructed the gazebo using only those design drawings. At an opening-night party, a large number of people gathered within the gazebo, and someone was injured when one of the railings gave way. The injured person and the client named you in a lawsuit, since you designed the gazebo. Do you agree with the lawsuit? Why or why not?
Response:
More information is needed to fully understand the situation.
1) Is there a contract between the firm and the client? Does is state anything about the firm completing a design for construction for the client. In other words, was it actually our job-were we responsible for the final design? or was this just a preliminary design consultation?
2) Did the firm know that the design drawings were being used for construction? Did they have other actual constructions plans that should have been used?
Even though the design drawings were not labeled correctly saying "NOT FOR CONSTRUCTION", I think that unless there were dimensions and other notes for how it should be built, that the entire design cannot be credited to the firm alone. If the design drawings were drawn for the purpose of just showing the client how it might look...then they were probably not notated with dimensions of construction details, therefore it was not a complete design, and the firm cannot be held liable.
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