Mississippi Katrina victims get okay to sue polluters over rising sea level

A group of Mississippi landowners can pursue their lawsuit against more than 30 major oil, electric and coal companies they say have created global-warming pollutants that contributed to rising sea levels and increased Hurricane Katrina's destruction, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports.

The central question before the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals was whether the plaintiffs could demonstrate that their injuries were “fairly traceable” to the actions of the oil, electric and coal companies. A lower court had ruled they could not, but the Fifth Circuit disagreed.

In its ruling, the three-judge panel cited the 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision that allows the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases, since that opinion “accepted as plausible the link between man-made greenhouse gas emissions and global warming” along with the fact that “rising ocean temperatures may contribute to the ferocity of hurricanes.”

Gerald Maples, lead attorney for the landowners in the class-action lawsuit, said he filed the suit 22 days after Katrina to get the attention of energy officials about greenhouse gas emissions. The case still has a long way to go, however. 

The Wall Street Journal talked to a legal expert who predicted that the ruling will invite more climate-change litigation in the future.“With this decision,” he says, “you are now pretty well assured of seeing others file these kinds of claims.”

The ruling is the second time in recent weeks an appeals court has allowed a similar lawsuit to move forward, notes the Times-Picayune. In September, the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals allowed Connecticut and other states to proceed with a suit aimed at forcing American Electric Power and other utilities to reduce greenhouse emissions.

Craig Pittman, Times Staff Writer

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Comments

[Tino]

I would love to see people who were DIRECTLY impacted by catastrophies that were caused by DIRECT actions of others get their day in court.

I'm looking at you, California environmentalists who fight any attempt at clearing flammable brush from forests...

[spepper]

I suppose, assuming for one brief insane moment that oil, electric and other utility companies are liable for a HOAX (artificial global warming), that this sort of twisted logic can also lay blame for the formation of the damned storm as well.....this tolerance of rampant government sponsored extremist hoaxism is the EXACT kind that led to the prevalence of government sponsored extremist intolerance that formed NAZI Germany....

[Ronnie]

I have no problem with this as long as the Plaintiffs can prove that they did not use any of the carbon producing fuels these companies provided. If they drove a car or had electricity in their homes than they are as much the cause as anyone else. This just shows how out of control our judiciary really is.

[Imperfect Storm]

If this bull crap is given credibility, this opens the doors for the EPA and Cap and TAX crowd to abuse us on a scale never seen before. Am I really hearing this and seeing this correctly? You people are running around saying the sky is falling and the temps have been cooling. We always hear about the "Right-wing" and fear mongering, THIS is the worst case of it right here. They will lose this case. It does open the door down the road like 5-10 years maybe, to take money from the USA or other industrialized nations. HUFF, HUFF, there..Guess what that was? Me exhaling, now they can sue me too? Common sense is dead and so are your brains.

[katrinasos]

Aren't the consumers as much to blame?