Hurricane Katrina law suit

As I recall, the government response to hurricane Katrina was so wrought with incompetence that it may be regarded by history as one of the biggest administrative distasters ever. In fact I wonder if it would have been possible for the residents of New Orleans to file a class action law suit against the government(from the mayor of the city through the state government all the way to GWB. Now I know this would not be the easiest of cases to win, and getting dubya and his cronies to show up to a law suit would be even harder than it would be to get them to show up in front of congress, but considering the massive amounts of gross negligence on the part of every level of the government I would say that there are grounds for a law suit. Finally, if this did happen, what then? and of course what if they won?
 
As I recall, the government response to hurricane Katrina was so wrought with incompetence that it may be regarded by history as one of the biggest administrative distasters ever. In fact I wonder if it would have been possible for the residents of New Orleans to file a class action law suit against the government(from the mayor of the city through the state government all the way to GWB.
The 2 biggest problems with the Lawsuit would be --
1] The Governments followed the preexisting Rules and Regulations to the letter.
The local Governments accessed the situation Properly, and requested Fema assistance at the proper time, Fema sent in The proper Advance teams to report on the problem, while activating Response Teams around the Country & waited the proscribed time to get a accurate report, and then started sending in the teams,
Most of the Hold up and Delays were due to the Wide spread Damage which required the teams to muster outside the area,and then use the limited local transportation .

2] The Defense Teams would point out the Preexisting knowledge that New Orleans had been living on Borrowed time for over 60 years.
They would point out that the People in New Orleans should have been more prepared, like People in New England preparing for a Blizzard ,or Californians preparing for Earthquakes.

Most of the Bad Impression about Government Slowness comes from the Media interviewing People in pre designated Shelters, complaining about the Government not being prepared to Cater to their Whims and how they thought thing should be handled.
 
On the contrary I think the government did TOO MUCH for the people of New Orleans. Just because you got wiped out by a huricane does not entitle you to be on the dole month after month. A couple months or so to allow you to find a new job somewhere else is sufficient. Many people have lost their homes and jobs in natural disasters and they weren't allowed to be on the dole for long periods of time.
 
Regardless of the moral and ethical lapses of federal policy before and after Katrina, there are several distinct principles of legal immunity that shields the government from just this kind of suit. I'll not turn this into a torts lecture, but let's say your house is broken into. You can't sue the police department if they are slow to respond. Likewise, in most cases you can't sue a sovereign government.

Does this make the idea impossible? No. It does however mean that the point of departure would have to be something like the Congress or the Supreme Court somehow invalidating some well-established legal principles.

This is actually a very interesting area of the law, though. It may be worth researching some further: I would start with sovereign immunity and the public duty rule.

Another area you might want to consider is constitutional law and civil rights torts, which are those causes of action specifically established to vindicate constitutionally protected principles, like equal protection.

As I recall, the government response to hurricane Katrina was so wrought with incompetence that it may be regarded by history as one of the biggest administrative distasters ever. In fact I wonder if it would have been possible for the residents of New Orleans to file a class action law suit against the government(from the mayor of the city through the state government all the way to GWB. Now I know this would not be the easiest of cases to win, and getting dubya and his cronies to show up to a law suit would be even harder than it would be to get them to show up in front of congress, but considering the massive amounts of gross negligence on the part of every level of the government I would say that there are grounds for a law suit. Finally, if this did happen, what then? and of course what if they won?
 
Top