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Appeals Court Tosses out Landmark Katrina Ruling
EMCS
Member Posts: 4,063
Appeals Court Tosses out Landmark Katrina Ruling
By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS September 25, 2012 (AP)
A federal appeals court reversed itself Monday and threw out a judge's landmark ruling that the Army Corps of Engineers was liable for billions of dollars in Hurricane Katrina flood damage that property owners blame on the corps' maintenance of a New Orleans shipping channel.
The same three-judge panel from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that sided with plaintiffs earlier this year withdrew that decision and replaced it with a new ruling in the federal government's favor.
The panel's new opinion says the corps is completely insulated from liability by a provision of the Federal Tort Claims Act called the "discretionary-function exception."
In 2009, U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval Jr. rejected the federal government's argument that it is entitled to immunity from lawsuits blaming Katrina's flood damage on the corps' operation and maintenance of the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet navigation channel.
Plaintiffs' attorneys argued that the corps' delay in armoring the channel was the result of erroneous scientific judgments, not public-policy considerations that would make it immune to the homeowners' claims.
But the 5th Circuit panel disagreed, saying there was ample evidence that decisions leading to the corps' delay in armoring the channel had a "public policy character
http://tiny.cc/xw75kw
By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS September 25, 2012 (AP)
A federal appeals court reversed itself Monday and threw out a judge's landmark ruling that the Army Corps of Engineers was liable for billions of dollars in Hurricane Katrina flood damage that property owners blame on the corps' maintenance of a New Orleans shipping channel.
The same three-judge panel from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that sided with plaintiffs earlier this year withdrew that decision and replaced it with a new ruling in the federal government's favor.
The panel's new opinion says the corps is completely insulated from liability by a provision of the Federal Tort Claims Act called the "discretionary-function exception."
In 2009, U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval Jr. rejected the federal government's argument that it is entitled to immunity from lawsuits blaming Katrina's flood damage on the corps' operation and maintenance of the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet navigation channel.
Plaintiffs' attorneys argued that the corps' delay in armoring the channel was the result of erroneous scientific judgments, not public-policy considerations that would make it immune to the homeowners' claims.
But the 5th Circuit panel disagreed, saying there was ample evidence that decisions leading to the corps' delay in armoring the channel had a "public policy character
http://tiny.cc/xw75kw
Comments
The same three-judge panel from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that sided with plaintiffs earlier this year withdrew that decision and replaced it with a new ruling in the federal government's favor.
Of course they did, they (gov't stooges) all get their paycheck at the same window.