University of Toronto Tort Law Case Study
TORT ESSAY – Sample case
An information technology firm assigned to one of its junior employee engineers the task of developing
special software for application on major bridge designs. The employee engineer had recently become a
professional engineer and was chosen for the task because of the engineer’s background in both the
construction and the “software engineering” industries. The firm’s bridge software package was
purchased and used by a structural engineering design firm on a major bridge design project, on which it
had been engaged by contract with a municipal government. Unfortunately, the bridge collapsed in less
than one year after completion of construction. Motorists were killed and injured. The resulting
investigation into the cause of the collapse concluded that the design of the bridge was defective and
the software implemented as part of the design did not address all of the parameters involved in the
scope of this particular bridge design. The investigators concluded that although the design software
would suffice for certain types of structures, it was not appropriate in the circumstances of the
particular subsurface conditions and length of the span required for this particular application. The
investigators’ report also indicated that the design software package was not sufficiently explicit in
warning users of the software of the scope of the design parameters addressed by the software. The
investigators’ report also stated that even an experienced user of the software might reasonably assume
that the software would be appropriate for the application on this particular project.
