What duty, if any, does an engineer have to warn of potential hazards associated with a conceptual design? The United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division, in Alviarez v. Goya Foods, Inc., recently held that no duty existed, granting summary judgment to the engineer.

In 2012, Goya Foods Inc. announced plans to open a new facility in Brookshire, Texas and retained Ambitech Engineering Corporation (now part of Zachry Engineering Corp.) to (1) generate conceptual layouts for both the process and packaging areas of the new facility, and (2) with approval from Goya, generate and assist in releasing formal bid documents.

Pursuant to the contract, Ambitech submitted several piping and instrumentation diagrams to Goya. One of Ambitech’s diagrams contained a hydraulic pipe for transporting beans and hot water into a blancher, where the beans would cook. Goya never returned comments on Ambitech’s diagrams, and their relationship ended in June of 2012. Ambitech had no role in the construction of the Brookshire facility which was completed in 2014.

In April 2021, a forklift operator was killed when his forklift stuck the hydraulic pipe causing its contents to severely burn him. The forklift operator’s family brought a survival and wrongful death action against seven parties including Zachry Engineering Corp. f/k/a Ambitech. The plaintiffs alleged that Ambitech failed to (1) conduct a hazard assessment, (2) design the hydraulic pipe at a safe elevation, and (3) warn Goya that the hydraulic pipe, if installed too low, would be a safety hazard.

Ambitech moved for summary judgement on grounds that it had no role in determining the height of the hydraulic pipe and owed no duty to conduct a hazard assessment or warn Goya of any potential safety hazards.

Under Texas law, a contract for professional services gives rise to a duty by the professional to exercise the degree of care, skill, and competence that reasonably competent members of the profession would exercise under similar circumstances. Plaintiffs retained an expert to opine that Ambitech should have provided technical information regarding the hydraulic pipe’s location and that the incident was a foreseeable hazard which Ambitech should have notified and or advised Goya of such hazard.

The District Court found that under the contract, Ambitech was obligated to provide “conceptual layouts” and such obligations could not fairly be read to encompass a broad obligation to warn of every potential hazard if particular pieces of equipment were situated in particular places. The Court explained that, had Ambitech’s design specified an unsafe height for the pipe, a fact issue may have existed about whether Ambitech owed a duty.  However, the conceptual diagrams did not specify any height for the pipe, which according to the Court, “makes sense because Ambitech’s role was to diagram equipment to be installed and its conceptual relationship to other stationary equipment, not to recommend that the equipment be installed in particular physical spaces in Goya’s facility.”

Plaintiffs also argued that the Court should recognize a duty as a matter of law, independent of Ambitech’s contract with Goya.  Even if it could overcome its doubts that a duty could or should be recognized beyond the scope of Ambitech’s contractual obligations to Goya, the Court held that it would not be reasonable to place a duty on Ambitech to detect or warn of potential hazards that might materialize during the construction and installation phase. That duty, according to the Court, rests with entities Goya retained to construct the facility and implement Ambitech’s conceptual design, not with Ambitech. Since Ambitech owed no contractual or legal duty to Plaintiffs, the Court granted Ambitech’s motion for summary judgment and dismissed Plaintiffs’ claims.

The attorneys in our Austin and Dallas office represent numerous design professionals in both transactional and litigated/arbitrated matters, and are available to answer any questions you may have. Please contact us at info@gstexlaw.com.

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