{"id":4465,"date":"2009-12-02T06:46:56","date_gmt":"2009-12-02T14:46:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blitransfer.wpengine.com\/?p=4465"},"modified":"2017-06-21T14:22:17","modified_gmt":"2017-06-21T19:22:17","slug":"katrina-victims-win-case-army-corps-engineers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelivingideas.com\/2009\/12\/02\/katrina-victims-win-case-army-corps-engineers\/","title":{"rendered":"US Government Loses First Climate Disaster Lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a case that is possibly precedent-setting, the US Government has just lost a landmark disaster-negligence lawsuit. The Army Corps of Engineers was sued for negligence in Hurricane Katrina flood protection in New Orleans… and lost.
\n<\/p>\n

Image: Lou Angeli Digital<\/a>\"Katrina_Damage\"
Exhausted firefighters put out a blaze in downtown New Orleans after Katrina hits<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While islands such as Tuvalu<\/a> have sued the oil industry and the Bush administration for negligence in causing sea level rise, in this case the complaints focused only on negligence for levy repairs.<\/p>\n

U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval awarded the plaintiffs (six residents and one business) $720,000, but the government could eventually be forced to pay much more in damages in this one case. According to the NYT<\/a>, the judge’s ruling gives more than 100,000 other individuals, businesses and government entities a legal precedent for claiming billions of dollars in damages.<\/p>\n

This is the first time ever that the Army Corps of Engineers has been held liable for damages for a major catastrophe that was caused in part by its negligence. A similar suit after Hurricane Betsy flooding in 1965 failed.<\/p>\n

The Army Corps has begun work on new<\/a> protection, but stay tuned. As we head into a future filled with more climate-change related disasters, lawsuits against negligence by Federal Agencies will likely increase.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a case that is possibly precedent-setting, the US Government has just lost a landmark disaster-negligence lawsuit. The Army Corps of Engineers was sued for negligence in Hurricane Katrina flood protection in New Orleans… and lost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":4485,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[8,16,22],"tags":[2854,751,1015,1163,1229,1233,1463,2158,2227],"yst_prominent_words":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/bluelivingideas.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/Katrina_Damage.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelivingideas.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4465"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelivingideas.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelivingideas.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelivingideas.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelivingideas.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelivingideas.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelivingideas.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelivingideas.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelivingideas.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelivingideas.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4465"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelivingideas.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=4465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}