Above Photo: by #Op309 Media
Flint, MI – It’s not generally very easy to sue the government. But now a well known Baltimore attorney, William H. “Billy” Murphy Jr. — who recently won a $6.4 million settlement for the family of Freddie Gray — has filed a federal class-action lawsuit against state and local government officials in Flint, Michigan over the poisoning of the city’s drinking water.
The city first monopolized the water – not allowing residents any choice in where they obtained their water services from – then they cut corners, and knowingly poisoned the city’s water supply, even while government officials had clean water shipped in for them.
The lawsuit was filed by Murphy and Flint attorney Val Washington in U.S. District Court in eastern Michigan, last Sunday. The suit demands that the city and state refund $150 million in water bills to all affected Flint residents. Furthermore, it requires that the city acknowledge their crime of poisoning the people of Flint, when they made the decision to knowingly draw drinking water from the river in 2014, which resulted in lead poisoning.
Murphy told The Baltimore Sun that this lawsuit seeks even further compensation for “all of the damages that are a consequence of having to be forced to use dangerous water.”
Additionally, the total amount sought is said to be “more than $150 million, significantly more, because it includes the cost of changing the interior plumbing in every house, and hot water heaters.”
The city has since returned to Detroit’s water system. But many say it’s too late, as the river water has caused damage to Flint pipes, allowing them to continue leaching lead into the city’s drinking water.
The lawsuit names the city of Flint and its former mayor, Dayne Walling, as well as the state of Michigan and Snyder as defendants, along with two Flint emergency managers, Darnell Earley and Gerald Ambrose.
The Michican Department of Environmental Quality and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, are also named as co-defendants.
The lawsuit states that the city and state knowingly violated the residents’ rights when they poisoned their water, allowed them no other options for water from competing suppliers, and then lied to the public and claimed the water was safe.
The suit accuses them of something “far more insidious” by conspiring to cover up the situation, even as it was known that residents were being poisoned.
Murphy ended up never having to file a lawsuit in the Gray case. Instead, he managed to negotiated with Baltimore officials on behalf of the Gray, settling on $6.4 million in September.