Katrina Victims: Justice is Coming

The long awaited decision came on Friday.

Federal Judge Stanwood Duval, Jr. ruled that the six plaintiffs in the test case of Robinson v. United States were entitled to a trial to determine their claims that the Army Corps of Engineers was responsible for the catastrophic flooding of the New Orleans East, St. Bernard Parish, and the Lower 9th Ward. The four-week nonjury trial is set to begin April 20^th in New Orleans. http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/neworleans/index.ssf?/base/news-10/1237613032260730.xml&coll=1

 In a 65-page ruling, Judge Duval dismissed the Government’s attempt to have the case dismissed on the ground of sovereign immunity—that is, a citizen cannot sue her government for damages caused by its employees. The Army Corps had argued that all of its decisions in the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of the MR-GO were discretionary and therefore immune—no matter how negligent or incompetent those actions and inaction might have been.The evidence shows that the Army Engineers failed to inform Congress about the MR-GO’s long known dangerous conditions—loss of storm surge buffering wetlands, channel erosion, subsidence of flood levee crowns, and the funneling of surge—and the attendant risk of catastrophic flooding of Greater New Orleans.

Judge Duval found that there were substantial issues of disputed fact about the Corps’ failure to comply with federal law, particularly the National Environmental Policy Act, in its management of the ship channel between the Port of New Orleans and Gulf of Mexico.

“It is disquieting to see that environmental concerns may not have had much sway,” the court observed.

At trial, Plaintiffs will offer substantial evidence that the Corps failed to implement feasible remedial measures that could have made the MR-GO safer and avoided the risk of the disaster that in fact occurred when the nation’s 35th largest city was destroyed in the worst engineering disaster in history.

The six plaintiffs in Robinson v. United States—the largest lawsuit ever against the federal government—are the vanguard for over 400,000 other victims who have filed claims against the Army Corps. If these six plaintiffs win, all other claimants similarly situated will be entitled to recover of damages. The Government has reported that these claims could run as high as $100 billion.

Judge Duval’s ruling can be obtained at www.katrinajustice.com under “DFE Order.”