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- Hacker News
- The article makes it sound like this was a ruling from one judge. In fact it was a 15 judge panel. The article is talking about the majority ruling, which was joined by 10 judges. The judge they name is the judge the chief judge assigned to write the majority opinion.
The other 5 judges wrote a separate opinion dissenting in part and concurring in part.
The article did do something quite well that way too many articles on court rulings fail to do. That is link to the actual ruling [1].
It is probably best to just read that directly if you want to actually understand what is going on.
[1] https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/24/24-60370-CV1.pd...
by tzs - Crazy that the comments are about the title and the how the legal system should work or does not work but no one cares if the water they need to survive is drinkable or not.
I am out of words for this comment section.
by lampe3 - I think this is a ruling that's hard to justify. There are many frameworks under which the judge could have chosen to rule, it could be treated as assault, or some type of aggravated assault/battery, if the lead can be measured in the people who consumed it, it could be treated as fraud, since the water is presumably sold, etc. and reasoning about that it would ordinarily be a punishable tort would make it clear that the government can't impose that sort of thing either, just as it can't send anyone out to punch people.
- Misleadingly provocative headline, right? The actual ruling from the article is that the US Constitution does not by itself grant US citizens that right. As the article itself points out, there’s nothing stopping other agreements from granting the right, and indeed several states do so explicitly.by Smaug123
- https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/docu...
Laudato Si' by Pope Francis: On Care for Our Common Home
30. Even as the quality of available water is constantly diminishing, in some places there is a growing tendency, despite its scarcity, to privatize this resource, turning it into a commodity subject to the laws of the market. Yet access to safe drinkable water is a basic and universal human right, since it is essential to human survival and, as such, is a condition for the exercise of other human rights. Our world has a grave social debt towards the poor who lack access to drinking water, because they are denied the right to a life consistent with their inalienable dignity. This debt can be paid partly by an increase in funding to provide clean water and sanitary services among the poor. But water continues to be wasted, not only in the developed world but also in developing countries which possess it in abundance. This shows that the problem of water is partly an educational and cultural issue, since there is little awareness of the seriousness of such behaviour within a context of great inequality. - Ok, so the article buries a lot of the context here. To clarify: plaintiffs can 100% sue the city for this under tort law (I believe the clean water act, but there’s probably other causes of action). This particular case was about suing the city officials in their personal capacity. So making those individuals pay, instead of/in addition to the city. Government officials are generally protected under qualified immunity. One exception to qualified immunity is 42 USC 1983: deprivation of rights under color of law. But that requires them to prove that these officials violated some constitutional right, beyond just some statute.
The victims can sue the city/state. They might already be doing so in parallel. And honestly that’s the only way to be made whole: these city officials don’t have the tens of millions that would be required to compensate victims. This is more about holding government officials individually accountable.
by openasocket - This headline is not correct. The ruling was that a constitutional lawsuit was not successful, not that the the US government has carte blanche to poison its citizens drinking water…
So, the correct headline would be “safe drinking water ruled not to be covered by the US constitution”. There are other binding agreements and regulations than the constitution in the US.
by mbeavitt - Plaintiffs ... seek recognition of two new constitutional rights lacking any foundation in the history and tradition of our Nation—the right to be free from exposure to contaminated water and the right to accurate information from public officials.
This is like filing a bug report that the Linux kernel allowed your Thunderbird to receive SPAM email containing false information. It's just a fundamental misunderstanding of how the US government is designed to work. Closed by Fifth Circuit as WONTFIX, file request for constitutional amendment (RFC) if desired.
by themgt