Very, very unlikely, with how these things fail. There’s a reason why joists and studs have the spacing they do. Also, when a joist like this fails, it doesn’t fail completely with the floor suddenly dopping out, it’ll crack, hang, the rest of the system will take the load, as designed.
Source: I’ve built and maintained a few houses, reconstructed these kinds of failures. Even in really old homes (early 20th century) with dried out lumber, a single joist completely failing (say, rotted out) only causes a low spot. The subfloor will sag, but not fail, as it’s securely attached in multiple places to each joist (which is why a failed joist just hangs).
I can’t even imagine a way for more than a sag to happen.
It’s their problem if they get hurt when it happens.
Very, very unlikely, with how these things fail. There’s a reason why joists and studs have the spacing they do. Also, when a joist like this fails, it doesn’t fail completely with the floor suddenly dopping out, it’ll crack, hang, the rest of the system will take the load, as designed.
Source: I’ve built and maintained a few houses, reconstructed these kinds of failures. Even in really old homes (early 20th century) with dried out lumber, a single joist completely failing (say, rotted out) only causes a low spot. The subfloor will sag, but not fail, as it’s securely attached in multiple places to each joist (which is why a failed joist just hangs).
I can’t even imagine a way for more than a sag to happen.