November 19, 2009

A federal trial judge has found the Army Corps of Engineers to have been grossly negligent, and the proximate cause of the flooding of the Lower 9th Ward and St. Bernard parish (both areas were virtually destroyed) during Hurricane Katrina. [Here is an LA Times story on the ruling.] Judge Stanwood R. Duval found that nonfeasance lay at the base of the flooding of East New Orleans, but that misfeasance was the cause of the "Lower 9th" and St. Bernard disasters. This could potentially be a humongous source of civil liability for the United States.