Electronic Design Software

Who would be responsible for an accident in the workplace due to a faulty design? (Construction/Electrical)?

This is a very strange one, but yet it deeply concerns me. I have an enormous amount of worry of this, so any help would be greatly appreciated. Hopefully someone has good knowledge about this subject to ease my mind. My line of work is in Electrical Contracting. I am new in this business area so my knowledge is very limited. I was employed to draw out schematical drawings on a Computer-Aided-Design software and send them out to customers of various companies. I was brought into the company because no-one previously employed does it. I have learned to use the software program over time, yet still haven't quite yet obtained the knowledge of what I have been drawing. All I have to go on, is the hand drawn designs that are given to me, so I can convert to an electronic form. Remembering I am in the electrical industry, here is the problem...if a customer/client of a past job has a nasty accident directly due to a bad design that we have made, potentially could I the 'drawer' of the designs get prosecuted or the guy who passes the original hand drawn designs onto me get prosecuted? aka the 'designer'. Or would the company 'as a whole' get done? Thankyou.

Public Comments

1. The Architect, I'm in construction and the CAD designs are terrible! My last job was my first all CAD project, interferences everywhere! I think your okay.
2. It is ultimately the responsibility of the company.
3. if someone a nasty accident due to a bad design that you all have made then it is on the company 'as a whole' the reason for that is you work for that company so when u mess up the company pays for it
4. The company as a whole would generally be liable for any incident related to your design. You could be held personally liable if it were shown that you either purposely or with gross negligence designed something that was unsafe.