Liability/responsibility of the individual engineer
I have concerns about the way my company (a contract design/build firm) is organized and does business.
We have very little in the way of control (configuration management, change control, maintenance of drawings, etc.) and very little mid- and upper-level management oversight of engineering projects. It seems to me that the company is exposing itself to a lot of liability by not implementing measures that are common and well-known in the industry.
Recently, a friend (not in this field) told me that she'd heard that some laws have changed in such a way that a business owner/manager could escape or be exempt from liability, even when a legitimate case against the company exists, and that a rank-and-file engineer could end up holding the bag.
Is this true? If it is, it could explain why the company has failed to show any interest in instituting better policies and procedures - which the engineers have asked for repeatedly.
Please help me learn more about this.