Coming attraction

Engineering professional organizations have long played an active, useful role in the development of product safety and performance standards as well as in providing expert technical testimony in courts of law and before legislative bodies. This is a service of great social importance and a role for which these associations appear well qualified. However, it is also a matter in which there may be strong commercial self-interest on the part of individual volunteer officers. There is then some danger that the implicit public trust may be betrayed. Problems of this nature have arisen in the past. The IEEE, among other organizations, had filed an amicus curiae brief, in this case because of the potentially far reaching implications of the decision for all volunteer membership organizations. In general terms, the IEEE brief advanced the argument that not-forprofit organizations should not be held liable for unratified acts of volunteer members which are not in the interest of the organization, even if they are performed by the volunteer in some capacity as a representative of the organization. This matter will be reported in the September issue of this publication.