THE DISCIPLINE FILE
Decision Summaries
Date: September 17, 2018
Case No.: 17-009-FH
REGARDING THE CONDUCT OF SUNDEEP JHINJAR, P.ENG., AND S&M PROJECT SERVICES INC.
Under the Engineering and Geoscience Professions Act , RSA 2000, c E-11 (“the Act”), a hearing into this matter was held by a Hearing Panel of the Discipline Committee on March 27, 2018. The hearing addressed a complaint against the conduct of Sundeep Jhinjar, P.Eng., (“Mr. Jhinjar”) and Mr. Jhinjar’s company, S&M Project Services Inc. The hearing proceeded by way of an agreed statement of facts, an admission of unprofessional conduct, and a joint submission on penalty. The hearing dealt with the following amended charges: 1. With respect to each of the properties (44) listed in and attached to the charges, Mr. Jhinjar and/or S&M Project Services Inc. designed and stamped tall wall designs that were deficient in one or more of the following ways: a. If drawn to scale the proposed windows and/or doors would not fit due to the thickness of the columns; b. Key design elements are missing, including but not limited to connection details to the roof and concrete ladder set, the header-to-column connection, clips for studs or columns, bottom plates to concrete foundations, and sill plates (wind beams on the lintel); c. The tall wall layouts lack climatic data; d. Some of the columns and headers on the tall wall designs would not pass an engineering/ structure check; e. The tall wall design ignores, or does not include, roof loading; f. Some of the tall wall is not top laterally
bottom chord of the gable end; g. In instances where the wall cladding is brick or brick veneer, the deflection criteria were not increased to prevent masonry cracking; and h. The designs do not represent a true wall as they were missing step downs which may affect column design and connection. 2. Mr. Jhinjar, on his own behalf and on behalf of the S&M Project Services Inc., executed a written voluntary undertaking to APEGA on February 9, 2017. The terms of that document included Mr. Jhinjar’s undertaking to not provide engineering services in tall wall design until the conclusion of APEGA proceedings involving him. Despite that, on or about April 28, 2017, Mr. Jhinjar issued a tall wall design for [a specific lot in a development in Alberta] in breach of his undertaking to APEGA. 3. Mr. Jhinjar inappropriately issued, or allowed the S&M Project Services Inc. to issue, tall wall designs bearing a reproduction stamp of another professional member. Such designs include drawings stamped by S&M Project Services Inc. on April 29, 2017, relating to [a second specific lot in the same development in Alberta], and on March 10, 2016, relating to [a third specific lot in the same development in Alberta]. It was alleged that the above-referenced conduct constituted unprofessional conduct as set out in Section 44(1) (a), (b), (c), (d), and (e) of the Act, and contravened one or more of Rules of Conduct #1, #2, #3, #4 and #5 of APEGA's Code of Ethics. The agreed facts included that Mr. Jhinjar became a professional member of APEGA on November 24, 2006. Since approximately 2011, Mr. Jhinjar engaged in his own practice of engineering, which included structural engineering in the residential home building context,
restrained. The roof trusses run parallel to the tall wall, and as such there is a hinge created between the top plates of the wall and the
55 | PEG SUMMER 2019
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