Hartford Civic Center Case Summary

Hartford Civic Center collapsed on January 18th, 1978 when the weight of the 4.8 inches of snow proved to be too much for the structure to handle. The roof was supposed to be designed to withstand much larger load cases than this small amount of snow. Fortunately, no one was injured as the roof fell at 4 o’clock in the morning. There are several relevant parties involved in this case. The first is the architectural company, Vincent Kling & Associates. They were a well-known firm located on the east coast near Hartford, Connecticut. The next relevant party is the group of structural engineers who were responsible for determining that the building was structurally sound and safe for all. For this project, these structural engineers were part of a company called Fraioli-Blum-Yesselman Associates. The remaining groups involved in this case are the construction companies who built the Civic Center. The building was constructed by the combined work of Gilbane Building, William L. Crow Construction, and the Bethlehem Steel Company. Lev Zetlin Associates is the civil engineering firm that investigated the case after the collapse of the Civic Center’s roof.
This engineering …show more content…
The Universal Law Formulation states: “act only on those maxims by which you can at the same time will to be a universal law. So in order for an act to be moral, it must go through the process of willing. The first step is create a personal maxim. For this case, the personal maxim would be “when I am faced with the decision to save money on a project or do a thorough job, I will always choose to save money”. Then this personal maxim needs to become a general maxim, “when one is faced with the decision to save money on a project or do a thorough job, one will always choose to save money”. Now, a world needs to be imagined in which this general maxim is followed by