It all comes down to insurance. If your building collapses, the insurance company will want to know if you did every reasonable thing possible to prevent it before they pay out on your policy. One of those things is making sure that the person who designed the building knew what they were doing, i.e. were they a licensed engineer.
I think most product companies are essentially self-insured. If Ford releases the Pinto and they get sued, they're paying the settlements themselves, not filing an insurance claim. So they are free to use whatever method they like to verify the competence of their employees.
> It all comes down to insurance. If your building collapses, the insurance company will want to know if you did every reasonable thing possible to prevent it before they pay out on your policy. One of those things is making sure that the person who designed the building knew what they were doing, i.e. were they a licensed engineer.
That has nothing to do with the law, though. Ie. any insurance company ought to be able to decide for itself what qualifies as "engineer". There's no need for the state to define this and sue people -- the insurance company can simply refuse to sell an insurance unless the work was done by people considered, by the insurance company, as "engineers".
A law defining what make the difference between an engineer and a professional engineer though reduces rriction in that context by creating a shared definition so instead of every insurance client having to provide the documentation that their eng was a p. eng (according to that insurance company's definition) both the customer and the insurance company can just refer to the licensing board to check.
The biggest issue in this case is that the state was using it punatively against a person who was not providing a p eng sign off or advertising services as a p eng. Having a regulatory shared definition is fine and helps smooth commerce.
Many places have an exemption for manufactured goods that are subject to testing. So for instance, a device doesn't have to be designed by a licensed engineer if it meets and is verified by testing to meet CSA standards.
But if you want to use something that's not CSA, then it does need to be reviewed and signed off by an engineer.
A home's electrical design doesn't have to be signed off by an engineer, but it has to meet code and be inspected.
If it doesn't meet code and you want an exemption (for instance because you are doing something that wasn't anticipated by the code), then you need an engineer to sign off confirming that what you're doing is safe and truly requires an exemption.
Yes, for attritional claims they “self-insure” (often through a captive or equivalent.) But for large claims they buy insurance. This is usually done from global reinsurers.
I think most product companies are essentially self-insured. If Ford releases the Pinto and they get sued, they're paying the settlements themselves, not filing an insurance claim. So they are free to use whatever method they like to verify the competence of their employees.