Yesterday’s Houston Chronicle Article, “Record reservoir flooding was predicted…”
On Thursday, the Houston Chronicle published a powerful story, describing reservoir modeling the Corps had completed even before the storm hit Houston. When the Chron does a story, it often contacts us for details. This article included a lengthy quote from Charles Irvine, one of the team’s three Court-appointed co-lead counsel.
What is important for our case is that the Army Corps’ design of Addicks and Barker Dams anticipated storing water beyond the Government-owned property onto private lands. Charles’ quote makes that point clearly. The full story from the Chron is here.
Litigation Update
As we reported in prior updates, the Court selected our lawsuit to be the “Master Complaint” for all upstream cases. Other filed cases are “stayed” (on hold) in the meantime. Last week, the Government filed its “Motion to Dismiss” the lawsuit, which is the court filing the Government uses to challenge any defects in our legal theory or other preliminary aspects of a case. Our response is due in mid-March. The Court-appointed lead lawyers are working on the response and we feel good about our chances of prevailing.
Of note this week, we had another hearing before our judge. As before, the Government tried to extend the schedule and delay the case. We convinced the judge to hold on to the timeline we had fought to establish. And, in the end, the Court issued an order reaffirming the accelerated schedule. That was great!
Meanwhile, we are also finalizing the selection of the “test properties,” which (as we have described in earlier updates) is part of the streamlined process to move 15 selected plaintiffs through the court system this year. Because our lawsuit is the “Master Complaint,” most of the test properties will be our clients. The Government is allowed to pick 5 test properties on their own, and the Court will oversee the final selection.
Next Town Hall Meeting: Friday, March 2nd, 6:00 – 8:00 PM.
At our town hall meetings, we explain why the upstream flooding happened, what the Army Corps knew, and what our plan for the lawsuit is. We usually speak for about an hour and then take questions until every last question is answered.
The next meeting will be on March 2, starting at 6:00 PM, at the Four Points by Sheraton Houston Energy Corridor, located at 18861 Katy Freeway, Houston, Texas 77094. Vamos a tener un traductor de espanol.
We have frequent meetings to inform the upstream client group about the case. If you cannot make this one, you can come to one in the future, or you can call us for more information.
As always, please feel free to call 713-533-1704 or 888-248-5215, or email addicksbarker@irvineconner.com or harvey@burnscharest.com with any questions.
