Less Than Perfection: Demystifying the Standard of Care for Design Professionals

• Pages: 23-35
• Date: 01 April 2025
• Published date: 01 April 2025
• Author: Andy Manuel,Luke P. LaRocca,David L. Zion
• Subject Matter: Civil Law

Published in The Construction Lawyer Volume 44, Number 2, ©2025 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with

permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any

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Forum on Construction Law The Construction Lawyer Spring 2025

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Less Than Perfection: Demystifying the Standard of

Care for Design Professionals

By Andy Manuel, Luke P. LaRocca, and David L. Zion

Andy Manuel is partner at UB Greensfelder LLP in St. Louis, Missouri. Luke P. LaRocca is partner

at Simon, Peragine, Smith & Redfearn LLP in New Orleans, Louisiana. David L. Zion is a director

at Berkeley Research Group in Atlanta, Georgia, where he leads its Standard of Care and Defective

Construction practice.

Most construction lawyers at one time or another have confronted the standard of care. It seems so

deceptively simple that often the depth and breadth of the standard of care are easily overlooked.

However, like many other construction-related issues, it can be a mistake—even a fatal one—if counsel

fails to consider the standard of care from the time a contract is being contemplated through the course of

litigation.

This article examines the importance of consideration of the standard of care from precontract, through

contract negotiation, and into litigation to provide practitioners with practical insight and, hopefully,

some tools to better understand pitfalls related to the standard of care. More specifically, this article

delves into implications associated with a contractually defined standard of care. Next, it examines

how and to what extent the standard of care can be impacted on plans and specifications developed by

design professionals that are less than fully complete. Finally, this article examines the necessity for and

qualifications required of an expert witness testifying regarding the standard of care.

How Is the Standard of Care Dened?

The idea of the “standard of care” evolved through the common law idea that professionals should be

judged according to some sort of generally accepted behavior. The denition of the standard of care has

evolved over the course of the past two centuries. Today, the standard of care generally can be dened as

the degree of care and skill ordinarily exercised by practicing professionals performing similar services

under similar circumstances. While states have a tendency to dene the standard of care in slightly

different ways, this denition is generally accurate from a nationwide perspective.1 “Regardless of any

contractual provisions setting forth the architect’s or engineer’s standard of care, the designer owes the

public and others with whom he does not contract the same standard of care as that required under

common law.”2 “This is generally the case even where the designer contracts to a higher standard of care

with the owner.”3

Can the Standard of Care Be Modied by Contract?

Dening the Standard of Care via Contract

When the American Institute of Architects (AIA) rst began putting out its standard form contract, it

declined to include a denition of the standard of care in the B101 Standard Form Contract Between

Architect and Owner.4 However, over time, the AIA began to realize that architects and others utilizing

the standard form contract documents were inserting denitions of the standard of care and that, in many

instances, the standard of care that was inserted into contracts was incorrect.5 As a result, in 2007, for the

rst time, the AIA inserted a denition of the standard of care into its contract form.