Harris County Flood Control District
A subdivision within the Addicks Reservoir, flooded by Harvey, August 29, 2017.
A federal appeals court has ruled the U.S. government is liable for Hurricane Harvey’s flood damage to homes located upstream of Houston’s Addicks and Barker dams in 2017. Attorneys for the homeowners are optimistic that the end of the years-long legal battle may be in sight.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled unanimously Monday that the government knew, or should have known, that the construction of the dams would cause damage to private property.
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Daniel Charest — a partner with the law firm of Burns Charest, representing the homeowners — said the appeal initially benefits the six claimants whose homes were test cases, but it lays the groundwork for thousands of others to benefit.
“The heavy lifting of trying to figure out what the law is and how the law applies to the facts at hand got done,” Charest said. “And so, the rest of the claimants can sort of walk through this beachhead, if you will, to use a military analogy and move forward with their claims.”
The government could appeal the decision to the full Federal Circuit, for what is known as an en banc hearing, or file an appeal directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“It brings everything a little closer, but it’s very frustrating for our clients and us,” said Charles Irvine, a partner with the law firm of Irvine & Conner who also is representing the homeowners. “The government has their right to exhaust all their appeals. So, we won’t know whether the government wants to avail themselves of those further appellate rights for probably a month and a half, maybe two.”
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request from Houston Public Media for comment on whether it would do either.
The ruling potentially opens the door for thousands of others to obtain compensation.
“Several thousand people that have already sued,” Charest said. “But all of those claims have been stayed pending a result in the appeal, and now we’re going to go back to the trial court and try and get organization around that.”
While the statute of limitations has expired for homeowners to sue individually, Charest and Irvine are working on building a pool of litigants for a class action lawsuit against the government.
“Anyone that has an interest in filing claim should reach out to us as soon as they can,” Charest said, “and we will do our level best to get them brought on board and do what we can for them.”