Posted on 05/02/2008 4:17:16 PM PDT by SmithL
New Orleans (AP) -- The Army Corps of Engineers can be held liable for flood damage caused by a "hurricane highway," a navigation channel that is believed to have funneled Hurricane Katrina's storm surge into the city, a federal judge ruled Friday.
The Corps of Engineers had argued that it was immune from liability because the channel is part of New Orleans' flood control system. The law says the federal government cannot be sued if something goes wrong with a flood control project such as a levee, reservoir or dam.
Judge Stanwood Duval dismissed that argument, saying the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, or MRGO, was clearly a ship channel and not a flood control project.
Plaintiffs' lawyers said Duval's decision is a victory for homeowners, who have suffered setbacks in their efforts to hold the government legally responsible for storm damage. They also said it clears the way for a Sept. 8 trial.
The corps "threw everything they had at us, every legal argument they had, their spin on the facts," said Pierce O'Donnell, one of the lead plaintiffs' attorneys.
In January, Duval ruled that the corps was entitled to immunity over flood damage from levee breaches elsewhere in New Orleans.
The government had claimed its immunity should extend to the MRGO, but Duval said that channel and the levee system are separate projects with different funding methods and purposes.
"The United States should not be immunized for a tort which occurred from an activity unrelated to a flood control project," Duval wrote Friday. "Taken to its logical conclusion, such a policy would yield absurd results."
Duval heard arguments from lawyers on both sides in March.
...Duval issued a similar ruling in February 2007, when he denied a motion by the government to dismiss the case.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Okay the ACE screwed up. This is cancelled out by the fact that a bunch of people were stupid enough to live below sea lever in a river delta. Case closed.
Interesting issue, hope it gets appealed and more fleshed out in reasoning.
Great, so they have sued to get more taxpayer money to waste.
oK, if he corp of engineers can be held accountable for this, I say a judge should be held accountable for his/her actions as well...so next time a judge lets a criminal out, and that criminal kills someone, I think the victim’s families should be able to sue the judge, right?
What I would like to understand from this peckerwood is how in the heck a hurricane is a tort.
Surprise, surprise, this corrupt p.o.s. Stanwood Duval is a Clinton appointment. It looks like another victory for the scumbag “jackpot justice” slip-’n-fall lawyers, but I suspect it will be short-lived. Can’t this be appealed to the court “en banc”?
If I remember correctly, the Corps of Engineers’ recommendations were chellanged and the Corps was sued by the usual gang of enviros and the suit was upheld by the usual bunch of judges.
Again, the liberals cause a problem and complain that we let them have their way.
ping
“Great, so they have sued to get more taxpayer money to waste.”
And, believe me, they WILL waste it. Louisiana in general, and New Orleans in particular, is so heavily invested in litigation as its major industry that I don’t think I’d be exaggerating by saying that 90% of all New Orleanians have filed at least one lawsuit during their lifetimes. I know for a fact that there are a great many New Orleans families whose members do not work, and have never worked, but all of them file lawsuits on a regular basis. In short, litigation is their career choice.
I wonder if this so-called “judge” would let the American taxpayers sue those who decided to live in that swamp in the first place and as a result, caused the waste of billions of taxpayer dollars after Katrina. If I’m not mistaken, there are people still choosing to live there. Not very bright. If the ‘canes don’t get ‘em, Algore’s polar ice melt will.
That’s how I remember it.
I would think that the Corp can sue the enviro’s, or at least, the citizens behind this suit can sue the enviro’s for stopping what would have helped that corrupt city.
Fat chance that happening!!
I suppose the ACE could be held responsible for the millions of dollars the locals diverted (stole) from the money allocated to flood control. Who would have thought the ACE was a criminal justice agency? Looks like if this is true, the state of LA and it’s elected officials are personally responsible for the inaction of the ACE. With competent counsel could get real fun.
Maybe the Corps of Engineers should destroy all their projects and stand down. Then then they could announce, “Never mind all the many benefits we have provided, we just can not be responsible for what may go wrong in the future.”
This was act of God.
Can we sue Jimmy Carter for f***ing up and ushering in a wave of Islamic Supremacists in the 1970s that still plague us today?
Find the original plans and if it says anything about flood control then this judge gets overrode on appeal.
CA-CHING!
Mayor Ray Nagin, Governor Blanco and Senator Mary Landrieu are exempt of wrong doing however...
This is absolutely true, but this is not New Orleans proper, as it was founded. The Mr. Go Canal was a government boondoggle that we were forced, as a nation, to fund and build. MRGO blew out the 9th Ward area, exactly what was predicted when the plan was proposed to excavate that giant, crazy, channel. MRGO was proposed as a jobs program, a short-cut between the Mississippi and the Gulf, never much-used that I ever saw. Didn’t work. It worked just fine as a water funnel to blowout the 9th ward.
This canal was a Federal project, against local objections, and a complete failure as a jobs program. MRGO isn’t the canal that took out NO, it took out the East side portion that tapers out into the marshes.
When they built this canal, it was a corrupt and inside deal that many objected to, but it was also Federal. Yeah, it’s a U.S. obligation, but don’t get taken; that was absolutely crap land that petered out into the water in all directions and was mostly owned by folks that rented out crap single family and crap multi-family housing. Don’t make those scum-bags rich by now rewarding them for buying and building on the landfills. It is idiocy to build on the East side of NO, next to the River and the Lake, at least as a Nation. If some guy wants to build a place there, more power to him, but I’m not going to pay for it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.