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NOTE:
The Equal Justice Society is co-counsel in this lawsuit.
Class
Action Asks Court to Order
FEMA to Live Up to Its Obligations
NEW
YORK (November 10, 2005) — A prominent New York law firm,
a Washington-based civil rights legal organization, and a California
not-for-profit legal organization, together with a Louisiana Law
Professor today filed a class-action suit in the United States
District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana to force
the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to provide timely
aid to victims of Hurricane Katrina living in Louisiana, Mississippi
and Alabama.
The
lawsuit, the first file against FEMA in relation to its response
to Katrina, says that the agency has violated and continues to
violate Federal law by failing to discharge its obligations as
the federal agency chartered to care for victims of natural disasters.
"There
is no excuse for this failure by FEMA or for its refusal to fulfill
its mandate," said John C. Brittain of the Lawyers Committee
for Civil Rights Under the Law, the non-profit, civil rights legal
organization that has joined with Schulte Roth as attorneys for
the plaintiffs. "Without judicial oversight along the lines
we have asked the court to provide, there is little chance that
the victimization will cease or that FEMA will come through with
the services it is legally obligated to provide."
The
suit seeks a court order to require FEMA to make it easier for
victims to apply for temporary housing assistance, to improve
the agency's outreach and accessibility and immediately to provide
trailers or other alternatives to replace shelters, tents and
other makeshift arrangements.
The
suit also asks the court to force FEMA to establish application
guidelines under which victims can obtain continued financial
assistance beyond a three-month period and receive adjustments
based on family size and other factors. The plaintiffs also request
that the court order FEMA to eliminate certain rules regarding
the use of funds victims have already received and to cease a
policy whereby FEMA makes room for its housing by evicting and
destroying the homes of residents of trailer parks.
"More
than two months after Katrina, thousands of Americans are still
being victimized, this time by bureaucratic inaction, indifference
and incompetence," said Howard O. Godnick of Schulte Roth
& Zabel LLP, a New York law firm that is providing its services
on a pro bono basis. "The poor and vulnerable -- including
children, the elderly and the disabled -- are suffering the most.
It is an outrage that these victims must sue a Federal agency
to secure services they are so clearly entitled to."
The
legal action has been brought by 14 named plaintiffs on their
own behalf and on the behalf of a class of people who lived in
Louisiana, Mississippi or Alabama on August 29, 2005, in areas
that were subsequently declared Federal Disaster Areas, were displaced
by Hurricane Katrina and have or will apply for disaster housing
assistance under the Stafford Act.
John
K. Pierre, a Professor at Southern University Law Center has been
retained as local counsel. Pierre described his involvement saying
"I just want to help out the people of Louisiana any way
I can." Steve Ronfeldt of The Public Interest Law Project
in Oakland and Eva Paterson of the Equal Justice Society also
worked on the Complaint.
A copy
of the complaint is available on request.
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