A federal judge in New Orleans ruled Friday that a groundbreaking civil lawsuit brought by homeowners who suffered damages during Hurricane Katrina could go forward against the Army Corps of Engineers.
In his ruling, Judge Stanwood J. Duval Jr. of Federal District Court denied an effort by the Department of Justice to have the suit dismissed — the fourth such bid in the nearly three-year-old case — and set a trial date of April 20.
The trial will allow homeowners in New Orleans to make their case that the corps was responsible for the failure of levees along a major navigation channel that inundated parts the city.
The highest hurdle in such cases is the government’s claim of sovereign immunity, which can protect it from certain kinds of lawsuits. A similar suit concerning the failure of the city’s drainage canal floodwalls was dismissed by the same judge based on a law that protects the government from lawsuits over the failure of flood-control projects.
The current suit, Robinson v. United States, focuses not on the failure of flood-control structures but on the damage caused by the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, a navigation canal on the city’s east side.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/21/us/21suit.html
