The city-parish last year paid out more than $1.13 million settling lawsuits filed by residents whose homes were damaged by sewer backups.
That amount represents a 34% increase over the $847,000 paid out in 2014 and a 30% increase over 2013’s $872,500. City officials say most of the lawsuits stemmed from the fact that the parish sewer system is antiquated and is inundated by rainwater during heavy rainstorms.
“This can cause a surcharge condition, backing sewer and rainwater into low lying homes,” says Gene Booth, acting director of the Litigation and Risk Management in the Parish Attorney’s Office. “The remainder of the cases are generally blockage in the city’s lines or pump station issues.”
The number of claims in 2015 was particularly high because of several heavy rains, Booth says, though he cannot point to specific storms per se.
“In 2015, we had a number of rain events where the city-parish received a lot of rain in a short period of time,” he says. “There generally is a direct correlation between the number of claims and the amount of rain in a given area.”
The number of claims in a given month fluctuates because it generally takes weeks or even months before a settlement can be reached after a serious backup, Booth says.
City officials say the ongoing Sanitary Sewer Overflow (SSO) Control and Wastewater Facilities program, which is upgrading the entire sewer system in response to a consent decree, is not the cause of the problems. On the contrary, they say the work, when completed in 2018, will help reduce the number of backups and the resulting claims filed against the city-parish.
“I think there would be hundreds if not thousands of these suits if we had not done the SSO,” says Chief Administrative Officer William Daniel.
Still, the city-parish tries to minimize its risk and exposure. Booth says city inspectors carefully examine each claim and only pay those where they know the city was liable. If a settlement cannot be reached, the two sides go to court.
At Wednesday’s meeting, the Metro Council approved another $74,000 to settle three lawsuits, and introduced the settlements of another three lawsuits for $92,000 to be voted upon at the Feb. 10 meeting.
Booth also says the city is frequently sued by property owners for sewer backups when the problem lies within their own system, not the city’s.
Says Booth: “These we do not pay.”
—Stephanie Riegel
