DIMANCHE

At least for now, a group of federal judges washed away hopes of recouping damages after the Federal Flood for residents in the Lower 9th Ward, New Orleans East and St. Bernard Parish. The Army Corps of Engineers is not liable for damages along the MR-GO that occurred during the Federal Flood, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday.

A three-judge panel on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals said a law designed to grant government agencies immunity from second-guessing of policy by the courts, known as the Discretionary Function Exception, applies to the Corps in the case of post-Katrina flood damage.

The case was brought before the courts as a class action by residents of the areas along the MR-GO. The opinion does not deny that the Corps' efforts to protect the shipping channel from were lax. But the ruling is confined to the Corps' liability. As laws like the FCA illustrate, the federal government agencies are immune from liability in a way that private corporations are not.

The decision reverses both a 2009 ruling by federal Judge Stanwood Duval that lambasted the Corps for their shoddy construction methods on the MR-GO, and an opinion issued earlier this year by the Appeals Court itself that upheld the ruling. In making the new ruling, the Court had to withdraw its March opinion.

In terms of money, a ruling that the Corps was liable would've put the feds on the hook for tens of millions of dollars, as 100,000 residents of the area would've been able to make claims for damages. The homeowners can now ask the full 5th Circuit to rule on the case, or appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.