Tag Archives: lawsuits

Harvey storm-water releases were unlawful government takings: lawsuits

FILE PHOTO: Water bubbles up from a sewer cover in an affluent neighborhood in the aftermath of tropical storm Harvey on the west side of Houston, Texas, U.S., September 7, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake

By Bryan Sims

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Owners of homes flooded during Hurricane Harvey are claiming billions of dollars in damages by federal and state water releases from storm-swollen reservoirs, using a legal tack pursued without success in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina.

Several lawsuits filed in federal and state courts in Texas claim properties were taken for public use without compensation. The lawsuits name the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and a state agency responsible for water releases. The potential damages could run as high as $3 billion, according to attorneys involved.

“No one expects your government is going to deliberately do something that is going to flood your home,” said Rhonda Pearce, 56. Her west Houston home was damaged by flooding from reservoir dam releases and she is considering legal action, she said.

“Homes were literally being swept away,” said Derek Potts, a Houston-based lawyer representing plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed in Harris County court against the San Jacinto River Authority (SJRA) in a Texas court. His lawsuits are seeking class action status and could involve thousands of homes and businesses.

Water released from a lake into the San Jacinto River was lawful and area flooding “was neither caused by or made worse” by those releases, the SJRA said in a statement. Similar claims from an earlier storm were dismissed in court, it said.

The Army Corps of Engineers referred questions to the U.S. Department of Justice, which declined to comment.

Potts said there are more than 1,000 homes valued at between $750,000 and $1 million, that could be covered by the lawsuit against the SJRA, putting potential damages in that case in the billions of dollars.

Similar cases last decade that argued the government improperly took property when levees failed in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 were unsuccessful, said Robert R. M. Verchick, an environmental law professor at Loyola College of Law in New Orleans.

“The Katrina plaintiffs tried to the do the same thing – and they lost,” Verchick said. “In some ways this is going to follow the same path.”

Christopher Johns, an attorney who has filed two lawsuits in U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C., said his firm has been contacted by hundreds of other homeowners. A 2012 U.S. Supreme Court decision involving flooding have opened the door to winning such claims, he said.

Megan Strickland, a plaintiff in one of the federal lawsuits, said while it is difficult to immediately quantify the damage to her home, many of her neighbors are in a similar situation.

“We don’t know if our neighborhood will be coming back again,” Strickland said.

(Reporting by Bryan Sims and David Gaffen; Writing by Gary McWilliams; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

More states seek to halt Trump’s new travel ban in court

Demonstrators rally against the Trump administration's new ban against travelers from six Muslim-majority nations, outside of the White House. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

By Dan Levine and Mica Rosenberg

(Reuters) – Several states said on Thursday they would move forward with legal challenges to a revised executive order signed by President Donald Trump this week that temporarily bars the admission of refugees and some travelers from a group of Muslim-majority countries.

The new travel order, which is set to take effect on March 16, changed and replaced a more sweeping ban issued on Jan. 27 that caused chaos and protests at airports.

The first order was hit by more than two dozen lawsuits, including a challenge brought by Washington state and joined by Minnesota.

In response to Washington’s suit, U.S. District Judge James Robart in Seattle ordered an emergency halt to the policy last month. That ruling was upheld by an appeals court in San Francisco.

Washington state Attorney General Robert Ferguson said on Thursday he planned to ask Robart to confirm that his ruling would also apply to Trump’s revised order, which would halt it from being implemented.

Ferguson told a news conference the new order harmed a “smaller group” of individuals but that would not affect the state’s ability to challenge it in court.

He said the burden was on the Trump administration to show that the court ruling from last month did not apply to its new policy.

A U.S. Department of Justice spokeswoman declined to comment on pending litigation.

The government has said the president has wide authority to implement immigration policy and that the travel rules are necessary to protect against terrorist attacks.

New York’s attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, said on Thursday he would be joining Washington’s lawsuit against the new ban and the state of Oregon said it would join too.

The opposition comes on top of a separate legal challenge to the new ban brought by Hawaii on Wednesday. Hawaii had also sued over the previous order and is seeking to amend its complaint to include the new ban. A hearing in that case is set for next Wednesday, a day before the clock starts on the new order.

The states and immigration advocates argue the new ban, like the original one, discriminates against Muslims.

MORE EXEMPTIONS

Trump’s new executive order was designed with the intention of avoiding the legal hurdles.

While the new order keeps a 90-day ban on travel to the United States by citizens of Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, it excludes Iraq.

Refugees are still halted from entering the country for 120 days, but the new order removed an indefinite ban on all refugees from Syria.

The revisions include explicit exemptions for legal permanent residents or existing visa holders and waivers are allowed on a case-by-case basis for some business, diplomatic and other travelers.

The first hurdle for the lawsuits will be proving “standing,” which means finding someone who has been harmed by the policy. With so many exemptions, legal experts have said it might be hard to find individuals a court would rule have a right to sue.

(Reporting by Dan Levine in San Francisco and Mica Rosenberg in New York; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Peter Cooney)

Britain will not start EU divorce this year

Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May (centre, left) holds her first Cabinet Meeting at Downing Street, in London July 19, 2016

By Michael Holden

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain will not begin its formal divorce from the European Union this year, a government lawyer said on Tuesday at the start of the first legal action prompted by last month’s referendum vote to exit the bloc.

At least seven lawsuits have been brought to force the government to accept that only parliament has the authority to decide whether Britain should trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, the formal exit process, rather than the prime minister.

Newly appointed Prime Minister Theresa May has vowed to press ahead with so-called Brexit but has previously indicated that Article 50, which starts a two-year countdown to leaving the bloc, should not be invoked before 2017.

Some European leaders have urged Britain to get on with the exit process, but in the first official confirmation that it would not be started this year, government lawyer Jason Coppel told London’s High Court: “The current position is that notification will not occur before the end of 2016.”

Britons voted by 52-48 percent on June 23 to leave the EU but the legal action over whether the government can begin divorce proceedings without approval from parliament is one of a number of challenges that could delay Brexit.

Last week, more than 1,000 prominent British lawyers wrote to then-Prime Minister David Cameron to say lawmakers in parliament should decide whether Britain leaves the European Union because the Brexit vote was not binding.

Some “Leave” campaigners say there is a concerted attempt by the pro-EU British elite to prevent departure from the bloc by entangling the process in political and legal challenges.

COURT TAKES LITIGATION “VERY SERIOUSLY”

On Tuesday, London’s High Court ruled that a case brought by investment fund manager Gina Miller should be the lead action in the Article 50 claims, and would be heard by Britain’s Lord Chief Justice, the head of the judiciary in England and Wales, in mid-October.

However, lawyers said it was highly likely that the case would be appealed to the Supreme Court, the highest in the land, and heard there in December.

“The court takes this legislation extremely seriously and we will move expeditiously,” said judge Brian Leveson, adding that the matter was of great constitutional importance.

Among the other claimants expected to join the legal action are a British hairdresser and a group of Britons living in France. Such was the media interest and number of lawyers involved that the hearing had to be moved to a bigger courtroom.

If the legal challenge is successful, lawyers say there will have to be a debate and a vote in parliament on when to invoke Article 50, which could slow the exit procedure.

While the majority of lawmakers backed staying in the EU, most have since said they respect the verdict of the public. However Owen Smith, who is hoping to become leader of the main opposition Labour Party, has promised to hold a second vote on any Brexit deal.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has also said Scotland’s parliament would consider blocking an exit as Scots backed staying in the EU. Consent is required from the parliaments of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, according to a report by the House of Lords.

“We will be making the argument that the correct constitutional process of parliamentary scrutiny and approval, as well as consultation with the devolved administrations in Scotland and Ireland and the Welsh Assembly, needs to be followed otherwise the notice to withdraw from the EU would be unlawful and subject to legal challenge,” Miller said in a statement.

The referendum campaign generated heated arguments and turned increasingly ugly towards its end, with one pro-EU lawmaker murdered in her own constituency a week before the vote.

Those strong feelings remain, and staff at law firm Mischon de Reya, which is representing Miller, had received a “large quantity” of threats, and racist and anti-Semitic abuse, said lawyer David Pannick. He said some clients had been deterred from taking action because of the abuse.

Meanwhile outside the court, a small group of “Leave” supporters handed out leaflets saying: “Uphold the Brexit vote. Invoke Article 50 now!”

(Editing by Guy Faulconbridge, Stephen Addison and Giles Elgood)