Federal judge rules flood victims can't sue Corps

Wednesday January 30, 2008, 3:03 PM, By Susan Finch, Staff writer, Times-Picayune

Thousands of homeowners who sued the Army Corps of Engineers over flooding of their property when three New Orleans drainage canal levees failed after Hurricane Katrina are out of luck because federal law makes the agency immune from such complaints, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval's much-anticipated decision follows a mid-August hearing on whether a 1928 federal law immunizing the Corps from being sued over its flood control projects would shortstop the homeowners' class action lawsuit accusing the Corps of negligently designing the floodwalls.

In his 46-page ruling, however, Duval made it clear that the law requires him to dismiss the cases, but that he is not unaware of the hardship caused by that the Corps' actions .

"This story -- fifty years in the making-- is heart-wrenching,'' Duval said.

"Millions of dollars were squandered in building a levee system with respect to these outfall canals which were known to be inadequate by the Corps' own calculations,'' Duval wrote.

"The byzantine funding and appropriation methods for this undertaking were in large part a cause of this failure. It is not within this court's power to address the wrongs committed, the judge said.

"It is hopefully within the citizens of the United States power to address the failures of our laws and agencies,'' Duval said. "If not, it is certain that another tragedy such as this will occur again.''