New Legal Research Digest Addresses Legal Strategies in Transportation Design
Woodward is producing the latest Legal Research Digest: “Tort Liability Defense Practices for Design Flexibility.”
This digest looks at how many transportation agencies have modified their design policies to require that historical, environmental, and other context-related elements are considered during the roadway design process. This methodology allows agencies to give equal weight to aspects of road design such as aesthetics, safety, and community concerns.
These collaborative, interdisciplinary approaches that involve all stakeholders are commonly known as context sensitive design, context sensitive solutions (CSS), or flexible design. However, the threat of tort claims and insurance practices have discouraged engineers in the past from trying innovative designs.
The new digest is intended to assist legal counsel in advising transportation agencies how to document the flexible design process and defend design defect cases where generally-accepted standards of road design were not strictly followed but the road was reasonably safe nevertheless. It provides a framework for determining successful strategies to employ when defending such design decisions. Topics covered include use of context sensitive design methods, application of context sensitive design, legal basis for defense, and current practices for risk management.
The digest is designed to be useful to attorneys, administrators, information officers, document retention officials, risk managers, planners, designers, and others responsible for design and planning decisions.
The Legal Research Digests are produced by Woodward Communications under contract with the Transportation Research Board
Inquiries to: John Boffa, (202) 234-7112
Posted: 01/4/12
