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A Monumental Victory For Katrina Victims

Pierce — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:51:15 +0000

In a ruling that could leave the Government open to billions of dollars in claims from Hurricane Katrina victims, Judge Duval foud that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had displayed "gross negligence" in failing to maintain the MR-GO, which caused damage to Plaintiffs' property in St. Bernard Parish and the Lower 9th Ward.

At the end of the day, Judge Duval agreed with us that Katrina was not a natural disaster. Rather, it was a man-made disaster caused by the Army Corps of Engineers.

While the Government will likely appeal, we are calling upon the Obama administration and Congress to agree to a universal settlement.

Below is a link to the final Trial Order

http://katrinajustice.com/

Below are links to various new coverage of this historic Order:

http://www.nola.com/hurricane/index.ssf/2009/11/post_16.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-katrina-flooding19-2009nov19,0,3370102.story

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/us/19orleans.html?scp=2&sq=katrina&st=cse

Fourth Anniversary of Katrina: A Sobering Reminder of Promises Unkept

Pierce — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 17:23:06 +0000

As we mark the fourth anniversary of the worst man-made disaster in American history, we are reminded of how much more needs to be done to redeem the federal government’s promise—made by both Presidents Bush and Obama—to rebuild Greater New Orleans.

Less than three weeks after the catastrophe, President Bush, speaking in front of a temporarily-illuminated St. Louis Cathedral, told the nation: "[W]e will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives. And all who question the future of the Crescent City need to know: There is no way to imagine America without New Orleans, and this great city will rise again."

President Bush then promised a prompt, massive infusion of federal funds: "Federal funds will cover the great majority of the costs of repairing public infrastructure in the disaster zone, from roads and bridges to schools and water systems," he said. "Our goal is to get the work done quickly."

Another Favorable Review For "America Betrayed"

Pierce — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:15:49 +0000

It seems that every reviewer falls in love with “America Betrayed.” Here’s another one: http://www.popsyndicate.com/site/story/america_betrayed

So please go rent or buy a DVD today.

When Will the Army Corps Be Held Accountable?

Pierce — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 14:11:28 +0000

I am pleased to publish a guest editorial by Leslie Cardé, an award winning journalist CNN, CNBC, People, NPR Radio) who produced, wrote, and directed the critically-acclaimed documentary “America Betrayed.” Leslie offers her perspective on the Army Corps of Engineers after two years of intensive investigation and filming several hundred hours of interview. “America Betrayed” can be purchased or rented from Netflix, Blockbuster, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple TV, and others. It may be bought directly from the distributor (First Run Features) at http://firstrunfeatures.com/

This August marks the four year anniversary of the catastrophic event which turned New Orleans on its ear… the arrival of hurricane Katrina and the ensuing flood disaster. This calamity was caused not by the amplitude of the storm, but rather by the ineptitude of the Army Corps of Engineers.

"America Betrayed" Continues To Garner Rave Reviews

Pierce — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:37:16 +0000

Leslie Carde’s hard hitting documentary “America Betrayed” exposing how the Army Corps destroyed Greater New Orleans is being widely acclaimed as it garners more and more rave reviews like the one below from the recent issue of Episcopal Life. The film is available in stores and online at Blockbuster, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Apple TV, and AmericaBetrayedMovie.com.

“America Betrayed” is a fine example of the documentary as an essential work of social justice by recording why the levees broke after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. It follows in the filmprints of other fine flood films, such as “Trouble the Water” or Spike Lee’s “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts,” but those documentaries do not show the presence of the church -- this, despite the work of volunteers mainly from faith communities. However, in “America Betrayed,” the Episcopal Church is represented by the Rt. Rev. Joe Morris Doss, a Louisiana native and a lawyer, who since 10 days after the hurricane hit in 2005 has been one of many working on a mission to make the U.S. government take responsibility for what happened.

Filmmaker Leslie Cardé interviewed lawyers, environmentalists, geologists, whistle-blowers, politicians (U.S. Sen. Mary Landieu and then-U.S. Sen. Barack Obama), historians like John Barry (The Rising Tide), and former employees of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Like my geology professor in 1964, no one has anything good to say about the Army Corps of Engineers (represented in newsreels of press conferences because it refused her requests for interviews).

Cardé’s angle is prosecutorial: she approaches the issue of government responsibility (or ir- ) as a lawyer would a jury. “America Betrayed” is the film to see in order to follow the ground-breaking civil suit, which began in federal court on April 20, 2009. The case considers claims by property owners against the Army Corps of Engineers that the Corps made the disaster worse by building the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, a 76-mile-long navigation channel that shoots straight to the Gulf from New Orleans.

“America Betrayed,” unlike its sister films, warns the rest of the country riddled with decaying and uninspected infrastructures (bridges and levees): Cities like San Francisco and my own St. Louis are next. Near the end of the film, Doss, as part of the legal, faith and political communities, which have banded on the Gulf Coast since the levees broke, encourages a “Camp David-like summit” to deal with the issue of accountability “because it involves everyone.”

“America Betrayed” hits hard and solidly. It’s essential viewing for background, for history, for moral purposes. It offers perspectives for justice now and caution for the future.

Reviewed by Martha K. Baker, a film reviewer in St. Louis for 30 years.

Pierce O'Donnell Cleared On All Counts

Pierce — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:56:02 +0000

Los Angeles, Calif., June 29, 2009—The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles has dropped the one remaining campaign finance charge against prominent Los Angeles trial attorney Pierce O’Donnell.

Judge S. James Otero today signed a stipulation order prepared by federal prosecutors to dismiss a felony charge of allegedly causing the treasurer of a political campaign to submit inaccurate reports. Coupled with Judge Otero’s decision earlier this month to throw out two other charges, the latest move means that O’Donnell has been cleared of all allegations.

“The government did the right thing by dismissing the final charge and vindicating Pierce in his fight against these allegations,” said George Terwilliger, an attorney for O’Donnell at the Washington D.C. firm of White & Case. “It is just as important to the cause of justice to root out unfounded criminal allegations as it is to promote integrity in the election finance system.”

O’Donnell has continued to vigorously represent clients since he was charged last summer with violations of campaign finance law. “I will continue to champion the causes of the vulnerable and unrepresented,” he said.

He served as lead counsel in the last remaining case for victims of Hurricane Katrina in their efforts to hold the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers accountable for the catastrophic flooding of Greater New Orleans. The trial of Robinson v. United States before federal judge Stanwood Duval, Jr. ended last month and a ruling is expected later this summer.

O’Donnell also served as lead counsel in a long-running civil fraud case that resulted last month in a $350 million verdict in Los Angeles Superior Court. The case, Auerbach Acquisition Associates v. Greg Daily, was originally filed in 2002 and is believed to be the largest civil jury award in California this year.

O’Donnell was charged last summer with three felony counts of campaign-finance irregularities. At the heart of the government’s case were allegations that O’Donnell had provided $26,000 in campaign contributions through employees of his law firm to the 2004 presidential campaign of John Edwards.

The third and final charge accused O’Donnell of causing the treasurer of a campaign committee to submit inaccurate reports to the Federal Election Commission concerning the contributions.

Two other counts claimed that O’Donnell’s so-called conduit contributions violated the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA). Those charges were thrown out on June 8 by Judge Otero, who ruled in a written opinion that the provision under which O’Donnell was charged “does not prohibit soliciting and reimbursing contributions.”

Prosecutors in Los Angeles have filed a notice that they will appeal Judge Otero’s decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, but pursuing that appeal must be approved by Department of Justice officials in Washington.

Brian O’Neill, O’Donnell’s Los Angeles-based attorney at the law firm Jones Day, said he is confident that O’Donnell will prevail in the appeal. “It is very much to Pierce’s credit that he has continued to practice law at an extraordinarily high level despite the pressures of this case,” O’Neill said.

“I’m delighted that justice has finally prevailed in this case,” added Joseph Cotchett, a prominent San Francisco Bay Area attorney who served as co-counsel in the Katrina case. “Pierce is not only an outstanding lawyer, he is an outstanding citizen who participates in the community. Needless to say, we are all delighted for him.”

Charges Dropped In Campaign Finance Case Against L.A. Attorney

Pierce — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 15:04:45 +0000

A federal judge dismissed the most serious counts against Pierce O'Donnell. He ruled that prosecutors had improperly charged the attorney with two violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act. Source: Los Angeles Times, June 9, 2009.

Below are links to news articles covering this story.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-odonnell9-2009jun09,0,6503039.story

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/06/08/state/n173614D46.DTL&type=printable

http://www.law.com/jsp/law/LawArticleFriendly.jsp?id=1202431315783;

http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticlePrinterFriendlyNLJ.jsp?id=1202431315617

http://electionlawblog.org/archives/013792.html

Corps Spends Tax Dollars To Burnish Tarnished Image

Pierce — Tue, 05 May 2009 22:55:36 +0000

The Army Corps destroyed Greater New Orleans. That creates a little PR problem. So what do they do?

Spend $1 million of taxpayer money to create a favorable image of this rogue agency.

The Corps has hired a swanky public relations firm for a three-year media campaign. http://opp-inc.com/content/index.php?page=outreach-portfolio-1

The best way to improve the Corps’ public image is to build better and more resilient levees in New Orleans, restore the storm surge buffering wetlands destroyed by the MR-GO, and stop lying to the people. President Obama and Secretary of Defense Gates should put an immediate halts to this outrage. And then they should appoint an 8/29 Investigation Panel as levees.org has been advocating for years.

The time for reforming—and more ideally, dismantling—the Corps is long overdue.

Prominent Corps Critic Fired

Pierce — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 14:06:37 +0000

On the eve of the historic Robinson v. United States trial set to begin next Monday, one of the Army Corps’ most vocal and knowledgeable critics has been fired. Dr. Ivor van Heerden, a research professor at Louisiana State University, was recently informed that his contract would not be renewed. The professor has been sharply critical of the Corps’ mismanagement of the flood protection system that was supposed to protect Greater New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. http://www.lsureveille.com/former-professor-unsure-about-fire-1.1714945

On April 9th^, 2009 LSU announced it was firing van Heerden, effective the end of the spring semester 2010. Van Heerden said he was not offered any reason. Van Heerden spoke to Harry Shearer on his Le Show radio program: "I learned about not being deputy director through the news media. They basically didn't have the guts to tell me that to my face.... They couldn't tell me why and wouldn't tell me why."

Dr. van Heerden wrote the highly-acclaimed book The Storm: What Went Wrong and Why During Hurricane Katrina—The Inside Story From One Louisiana Scientist that chronicled the post-Katina investigation that he led for the State of Louisiana. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/30/books/30stor.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5088&en=0e0db3ff031f3f7a&ex=1306641600&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

LSU is the beneficiary of substantial research grants from the Army Corps. The Chancellor and his minions have made no bones about the fact that van Heerden was rocking the boat by biting the hand that fed the university’s coffers. http://www.nola.com/timespic/stories/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1239714610325230.xml&coll=1

Dr. van Heerden has also served as a valued scientific consultant to our trial team in the Robinson case. LSU prohibited him from being a testifying expert at our trial. It is hard enough to defeat the most powerful adversary—the United States of America that prints the money and makes the laws—but heavy-handed tactics to suppress the truth make the challenge even more daunting.

This story is not finished.

Katrina Plaintiffs Win Right To Trial

Pierce — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 14:39:08 +0000

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.”