Civil law liability risk of calculation engineers

Simulation programs like the Finite Element Method belong to the set of standard tools in product development. These systems are used to describe scientific problems using mathematical means and present the solutions for those problems in a graphical way. They also support the development process of a product significantly. Subject matter decisions however, are made by the calculation engineer. To do that, she needs sufficient theoretical, application specific knowledge and thus knowledge about potential sources of errors. As errors in the analysis cannot be ruled out even until the very end of the project, certain subject matter risks persist. Consistent process and quality management can help mitigating those risks or even avoid them completely. Liability risks are strongly related to subject matter risks. For those, we can distinguish between contractual and non-contractual liabilities. Product-liability claims belong to the latter, too. Fundamentally, the risk to be accountable for a product defect is the greater, the more responsibility the calculation engineer has within the company. This paper is supposed to give an overview about the civil law liability risks of calculation engineers. This means, it especially targets companies and engineers that provide calculation services to third parties or execute those services for internal product development.